General > General Technical Chat
The US electrical system
bdunham7:
--- Quote from: tom66 on June 26, 2020, 09:14:00 pm ---My clothes dryer uses 2.2kW and a total of ~2.7kWh to dry 8kg of clothes straight from the washing machine.
I don't understand how you'd need 7kW to dry clothes. One of the important things is to not overheat the clothes which damages fabrics and risks fire.
--- End quote ---
'merica. Everything is bigger. My first car had a 7.5 liter engine. :)
Halcyon:
--- Quote from: duckduck on June 24, 2020, 10:23:35 pm ---Electromechanical spinning disk meter on my nest. I'm not a big fan of "smart" meters or "smart" anything else. Also, get off my lawn.
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:-DD
free_electron:
--- Quote from: ciccio on June 24, 2020, 03:08:08 pm ---I'm shocked by the 200 Amps main breaker. Here in Italy a standard family has a 3.0 to 5.5 kVA contract, which means a 16 or 20 Amp breaker.
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do you have any idea of the load of a 5 ton airco unit ? that thing pulls 30 to 32 ampere on a hot day ... throw in an electric water boiler, a 5 kilowatt oven (or a double one) , a 3 kilowatt cooktop , a 2 kilowatt microwave, a 2 horsepower food disposal unit , a dishwasher, washing machine and electric clothes dryer, a well pump , a 2 hp pool pump , 1kw saltwater chlorine generator, ... yup you need that 200 ampere !
I just bought a new home. Planning to go solar... looking at a 16 kilowatt array with 4 battery units.... covers 120% of my usage.
NiHaoMike:
--- Quote from: free_electron on June 27, 2020, 01:51:30 am ---do you have any idea of the load of a 5 ton airco unit ? that thing pulls 30 to 32 ampere on a hot day ... throw in an electric water boiler, a 5 kilowatt oven (or a double one) , a 3 kilowatt cooktop , a 2 kilowatt microwave, a 2 horsepower food disposal unit , a dishwasher, washing machine and electric clothes dryer, a well pump , a 2 hp pool pump , 1kw saltwater chlorine generator, ... yup you need that 200 ampere !
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The demand can be way reduced with smart engineering, even if 5 tons of A/C really is needed. (Hint: if your insulation is decent, it's unlikely unless you truly have a huge house.) The water heater isn't going to need to run at full capacity when the A/C is needed at all, plus one based on a heat pump reduces the power usage down to a few hundred watts. The oven is only going to draw full power during preheating, same with the cooktop. The microwave is only used for short bursts and the disposal for even shorter. Heat pump dryers also use much less power. The pool equipment doesn't need to run full time so a smart controller can run it when demand is low and/or energy is cheap.
cliffyk:
At first I had a problem watching the video as I could not get General Trelane, the lonely Squire of Gothos out of my mind:
That and that it started out with the fellow prattling on sensationally about a bunch of stuff I learned in 8th Grade shop class kind of shot his credibility right off the bat. However once I saw where he was going it was not bad.
Maybe I missed it, but it did seem that he glossed over or did not emphasize that the so-caled "neutral" wire in our silly earth return split phase system is anything but neutral. It carries the full difference of the loads applied to each phase. If you draw 200 A from 120 V phase "A", and 100 A from phase "B", the "neutral" wire will be carrying 100 A--enough to be a BIG surprise for anyone believing it to be "neutral", and mucking about with it while the full phase load is unbalanced.
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