Sounds good to me.

Yup, dead on except for one fact. He says not all circuits will be "energized". I think he meant to say "will not have a load", or current applied. Perhaps he was simply "dumbing it down" to a lay person's level.
No offense meant to any lay persons.

...or loaded up to the breaker capacity.

"Energized" sounded good to me, but then I was watching a Star Trek marathon at the time...the old ones are still the best and I remember them from their first run.

Ok, I was just curious.

I remember a discussion from last year about amps of service
and from what I read you have two wires coming in from the pole
and for 200 amp service each line is capable of 200 amps.
Making the breaker box capable of 400 amps worth of breakers.
Is this relevant to this post in any way.
Such that what if instead of 400 amps worth of breakers,
It was 200 amp service with 500 amps worth of breakers.

Just curious is all.

Thanks.

Pooh Bear

No, not relevant or accurate. Sorry.

Not accurate? Could you elaborate?

It was a post on this forum and the general consensus was
that each line from the pole was able to provide 200 amps.
That was my understanding. (but I got fluff for brains).

Pooh Bear

Yes, a 200 amp service is capable of delivering 200 amps per leg.
A 200 amp residential service is 200 amps at 240v. Or the equivalent of 400 amps @ 120v.
More precisely 48,000 watts worth of power.

This is NOT a "breaker box capable of 400 amps worth of breakers."
The sum of the breaker is of NO consequence. It is not uncommon to have 600-800 amps worth of breakers in a 200 amp panel.

Wow, interesting info.
I really didn't know any of this.
It does make more sense to me now, tho.

In the house I grew up in we had an electric heat pump, electric water heater, electric kitchen stove, electric clothes dryer, and I had several 220 outlets in a workshop. Now I don't know exactly what all those pull in amps but I would guess it pushes the 200 amp limit. And then add in all the 110v loads. And it's not inconceivable that all that could have been running at the same time. It's an interesting thought to ponder. (to me anyway).

Thanks for explaining it.

Pooh Bear

I have 385 amps in my panel and I'm wondering if I have a 200 amp panel box?????

11-year old thread.

The main breaker on your service is a clue to the service size, but that's not fool proof. You'd have to consult the power company to know for sure (I've seen 200A panels fed by 60A service and it's not against code).

As for the "sum of the breaker" thing. Again, as pointed out, service and panel sizes are determined by the expected load. There's a whole section of the code as to how to compute this. It doesn't involve looking at the breakers.

I actually had the reverse problem. When designing the electric heating system for my new house, the plumber said that it would need 400 Amp service. But, when it was all installed, the electrician only ran 200 Amps. The line from the pole to the meter panel, the meter panel itself, the buried line from the meter panel to the house, and the breaker box in the house were all 200 Amps. After everything was up and running (including heating the house with its 86 Amp electric boiler when the outside temperature was -20), the builder decided that he should correct the error. So he redid everything: ran a new line from the pole to the meter, changed out the meter panel and meter, installed a second 200 Amp panel in the house, and ran a second 200 Amp line from the meter to that panel. The second panel has only the boiler on it and its associated control circuitry. Of course, I had to pay for the additional work!

Their mistake, their dime.

I think he meant that in Europe the service is a fraction of what we see here (way less than 200A) not that 200A gives you less power there.

Yes, that's what I meant.

Although in Spain, the latter is sort of true. Their utilities aren't too careful about voltage. The system is (IIRC) 220 volts nominal, but it often drops as low as 200-205 volts.

Many American's don't value energy very much because it's relatively cheap. There is a huge amount of waste, whether it's electricity, gas or motor fuel. If it was as expensive here as it is in Europe, people would use less, install fewer power wasting devices, and homes wouldn't need all the power they are built with.

Supply and Demand. Interesting concept. Wonder if it will ever take hold.

Actually, things change over time. Years ago, we didn't have A/C in most places. We used gas to cook with and had furnaces that burned gas or oil. We didn't have a lot of other appliances or lighting. Homes were conservatively small. 60A service was fine.

As we got more and more power hungry, with "all electric" houses, heat pumps, A/C's, electric clothes driers, electric cooking, bigger houses, 100A was even considered lean. 200A became the de facto standard. Even in some cases 400A was recommended (indeed I have 400A service).

Of course, things swing the other way. Incandescent lighting is largely history in lieu of CF and now LED. Heating equipment has gotten much more efficient and so has insulation. I typically only burn about 6KVA on my service.

The key, as I stated before, is to do a proper load analysis. That's the only way you're going to determine if you have enough capacity both in total and on any particular subset or branch.