Ask What Up? What Up? Everybody? Welcome to another episode of Let's
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just so you know. Okay, all right, So today episode I
had a question somebody sent in and and it's more of an opinion piece type
of question they ask me. It said, Hey, Paul, love your
podcasts, love what you do for the industry. I appreciate listening to your
podcast on a daily basis. I wanted to ask you of the changes in
the twenty twenty three National Electrical Code, what do you think is your most
favorite change? Thank you again, keep up the great work. Okay,
great, great question. I appreciate the question came in. I also appreciate
now and then when people aren't just asking me code questions. But you know,
it's like a yo, yo, want my opinion. Everybody knows I'm
opinionated. I'll give an opinion. But okay, So as an educator,
I have to say, okay, I have to say that the restructuring of
Article two twenty, which started out not being a big fan of, Okay,
i'm gonna tell you that. Right, all of that I thought,
okay, why are you gonna break something? I get it. But the
more I got into it, and I mean, there's a lot of great
changes that took place in the twenty twenty three edition of the n EC,
but the restructuring the style of Article two twenty, to me, was brilliant.
It flows so much better. Uh. And as a person that has
to teach people calculations, low calculations and things like that it's it's it's just
a much better flow than it was in the pat not that it was anything
wrong with the twenty twenty the twenty seventeen. I mean, we can get
there, right, we can get there, but it just flows. It
just seems to flow so much better in the tent the twenty twenty three edition.
And so if you had your codebook and you had a twenty twenty three,
you'll notice that article two twenty has a new illustration at the beginning where
the scope is and you should always read the scope so you know that what
you're doing is Germane. But now it pretty is pretty much a really good
pictogram if you will, of how it flows your general requirements in part one,
your brand circuit load calculations in Part two, and how they flow and
feed into Part three or Part four, and how the feeder or service load
calculations, whether it's the standard or optional or going to use values that may
come from Part two when you're coming up with your different loads, and it
just seems to be a much easier flow, and it makes it really clear,
for example, that when you're doing standard calculations that when you're dealing with
healthcare facilities, or you're doing with Marina's boatyards, floating buildings, commercial and
non commercial docking, that they're going to follow the standard method. There is
no real optional method for them. So it's just a much easier way to
look at it. And it makes it very clear that your neutral loads get
calculated on the standard method, regardless of whether you're using the optional standard to
size your feeder or service on grounded conductors. When it comes to the neutral
you're gonna have to use the standard method. They both agree that two twenty
dot sixty one, which is going to reference you back to the standard,
is all applicable, So it just kind of it just gives you a much
much better flow to it. Okay for me, for me anyway, in
my opinion. Now, one of the things that kind of moved around and
here also is when you're coming up to calculations and two twenty dot five you
have now an A, B and a C, and C talks about the
floor areas, so that got stripped out previously of two twenty dot twelve and
all that kind of stuff when it comes to and into twenty dot fourteen,
when it comes to what are the dimensions you use in order to come up
with your floor area. So that is two twenty five C. Interesting enough,
one of the things that I do get comments all the time, and
a lot of my students who when they're doing their low calculations, you know,
they're always rounding up kWh and things like that, and I have to
remind them that the rounding rule that falls under two twenty dot five B.
And remember I'm looking at the twenty twenty edition. Okay, it says fractions
of an amp here calculations should be permitted to be rounded to the nearest whole
number whole amp here, with decimal fractions smaller than point five to be dropped.
That only applies to when you're doing ampacity, not when we're doing you
know, kW right or something like that. We just want the answer,
I just I just want the answer. Yeah, when you go to translate
that into amps, then you can do your rounding up or dropping off.
But you know this, this rule, the fraction of an amp only applies
to amperage, not to kW. Okay, so I think people you know,
do get confused with that, but just remember that's what two twenty dot
five is there for now. Interesting thing with the I'm talking about my favorites
here. Interesting enough, when you start into part two for brand circuit loads
in the twenty twenty three edition, it now loads it up front and it
kind of gives you some direction moving forward, like it says, okay,
you've got two twenty dot ten, which is general, and then it's got
a one, two, three, four five, and it's reminding you that
two twenty dot fourteen is for other loads all occupancies. To twenty dot sixteen
is for additions to existing installations. To twenty dot forty one is for dwelling
units, to twenty dot forty two is for lighting loads for non dwelling occupancies,
and then to twenty forty boards for hotels and motel occupancies. Right,
so this is your general brand circuit loading requirements. So I like how it
starts out that way, kind of sets the kind of sets the tongue.
And then after that you've got two twenty dot eleven, which tells you this
is the maximum loads. Right, so this is the load on a brand
circuit, and it's shannocks see the rating of the brand circuit nor the maximum
load that are specified. Right in two twenty dot eleven A through C under
the conditions specified therein. So this is where you get the guidance things for
motors, for example, motor operated and combined loads. This is where it's
going to give you, for example, for the brand circuits for four thirty
dot twenty two, for conductor sizing all of that dinner. If you have
multiple motors, that's where it's going to give you some guidance for four thirty
twenty four where you take one hundred and twenty five percent of the largest motor
at NFLC and then the some of the other motors that are in the same
group. This is where you start to get that permission, right because we're
we're talking about prance circuits here. And then of course you get things like
cooking equipment under sea that it again says that ranges one amount of ovens,
countermount of cooking units and other household cooking appliances in excessive one in three quarter.
They're permitted to use the values and table to twenty dot fifty five.
So that's where you get the permission. So a lot of times people overlook
that, they just go straight into two twenty fifty five and they wanted,
okay, I get it that I'm doing this for ranges, but what actually
gave me the permission to be here? And that's why you got to go
back and say, well, now in a twenty twenty three edition two twenty
to eleven does that okay? So that's kind of one of my favorite things.
Now in two twenty fourteen, again, this is all occupancy, So
this applies to all. This is not just dwellings. This is every occupancy.
It has a systematic list of A through K okay, And people ask
me all the time it's like, well, what happens if I have a
load to a specific appliances and it's not really covered under here, under B,
C, D, E, F, G, H J K.
Well, A would come into play because A is talking about a specific appliance
or load. So if it's not like I have some specific appliance and it
doesn't fit nicely in these little lists here that I don't have to account for
the load, you do have to account for the load. So where would
that fall? Well, it falls under A. Right it says an outlet
for a specific appliance or other load not covered into twenty fourteen B through K
shabby calculated based on the ampere rating of the appliance or the load serf.
So again, it's still got to account for it. So I do get
that question a lot from people. A good example of that would be a
lot of times you could have let's say you had a cooking appliance that was
less or one in three quarter or less. Well, still got account for
that load. You just don't apply it to any demands in two twenty out
fifty five. But you still have to account for the load. The load
is there, it's not going anywhere, right, But you again, you
have all of these allowances in here, fluminaires, signage, show windows,
multi outlet assemblies, receptable outlets. Again, other than what you do in
residential okay, which is two twenty fourteen j Well, not jay, excuse
me. Two twenty dot forty one's where it is now, Okay, two
twenty out forty one is where you're gonna get all of the rules for one
family, two family, multifami. They used to be two twenty dot fourteen.
So let's see there's the change, right. So what that is saying
is that any receptable outlet, okay, it's going to be rated in one
hundred and eighty v A. Now that does not apply to sidential that is
going to be engulfed, right, your general use receptacles around your living room,
your bedroom, that's all engulfed in that three VA per square foot,
and that's now going to be in two twenty forty one rather than two twenty
fourteen JA where it was in the twenty twenty or prior. And that makes
sense right to kind of break this down. So since we're talking just receptacle
outlets other than dwelling units, then it's one hundred and eighty VA per outlet.
Now what's interesting with that is that even if it's a simplex, duplex,
triplex, if it's just one strap, then it's one hundred and eighty
VA. That's it, right. If it's a two gang box and you
put two duplexes in there, then it's one hundred and eighty each, right,
makes sense. Okay, So anyway, it's it's all seems to just
flow so much better. And so the whole point of this, you know,
I was asking my opinion, and so as an educator, one of
the things that people always say to me is, Paul, what can you
do? What can they do to make calculation especially low costs. Probably one
of the most complicated daily tasks that somebody might have is a low calc and
anything that you can do in a code to make it easier for people to
understand it easier to learn the process. Now, in our courses, our
fast track programs, we give you a nifty little sheet that you can use,
and that's just to kind of get used to doing it over and over
over again in your head and it becomes second nature and you just end up
just knowing it. You're building up that knowledge base, that repository of knowledge
in your head. Right as I tell people all the time, you could
feel that beaker up so much over time, you're gonna lose something, whether
you have evaporative knowledge or you just forget something, because out of sight,
out of mind, you're always trying to refill that beaker of knowledge. And
if you can learn something from somebody else, you don't have to know more
than somebody else. But if you shut up and listen to them. This
is why I love to listen to other educators. And it's not whether I
think they know more than me or less than me, it doesn't matter.
It's that they might have one little nugget of knowledge that I can put in
my repository to help me. And that's the way you got to look at
it, right, that's the way you have to look at it. So
I'm always trying to replenish my beaker, if you will, my beaker of
knowledge. Okay, my reservoir of knowledge, because you're just going to forget
things over time. It's just the way it is. But in doing so,
they have made it so that it does to me. Just to me,
it does flow better, right, just does flow better. Now,
when you get to part three, which is is we refer to this and
it doesn't say standard method, but we refer to this as the standard method.
This is the the maybe it's the general method that you would use.
We call it standard method versus optional. But you know, it's doesn't say
standard. To my knowledge, it doesn't say standard. It's just the method.
It's the method that we use on exams for those that are taking electrical
exams. Even though in the real world we would probably never use the standard
or this the general method. In part three, we would always use the
optional. It's going to result in a smaller service ninety nine point nine percent
of the time, and that's what we're after right. No sense putting in
a six hundred amps service. If a feign a service will get away with
it. No sense in trying to put a foreigner if a two hundred amps
gonna work, fine, you know. So at the end of the day,
if it was two hundred and eighty amps and standard method and you did
it in the optional method and it was one ninety, then I'm going with
the two MP code allows me to do it. You can say, well,
I'd never do that. I'm going with the man. Well you do,
you boo, what reality is. It's permitted in the code. I'm
going to do it right, doesn't make it wrong. That's up to you.
You have that choice under Part three. It reminds us, and again
this is why I wanted to point this out. In two twenty dot forty
of the twenty twenty three edition of the NBC, it says the calculated load
of a feeder or service shall not be less than the sum of the loads
on the brand circuits supplied as determined by Part two of this article after any
applicable demand factors permitted or required by Part three, four or five sign blah
blah are applied. So this tells you right off the bat that a lot
of the information that you're going to use in part three for your service or
feeder is coming from what you do in part two. So it makes sense
you basically think of Part three is is collaborating and bringing everything together that you
might have utilized under Part two, the pieces, if you will, pieces
of the puzzle coming together under part three. So when you get to part
three, then you get to two twenty forty one, which is basically new
for the twenty The approach to it is new for the twenty twenty three.
And this is again that's telling you know here. What's interesting is because a
lot of people get confused about can the general use receptacles through does that three
VA which was lighting? Everybody referred to that as the general lighting, and
then you had to convince everybody that no, well you can also put the
receptacles like in your living room and bedroom and basement. You can put that
those that three VA is encompassed in that. People still wanted to debate.
I wanted to argue, and they say, wall wait a minute, it
says general lighting. And then you had to actually read it to to get
clarity for it. So in this case. Now it says TO twenty forty
one says dwelling units, and it says minimum unit load. Unit load means
that unit's combined loading. And it starts out by saying one family, two
family, and multi family dwellings, the minimum unit load shall be not less
than three VA per square foot. So multi family buildings, you're doing the
individual dwelling units at their unit load. Outside dimensions, you're you're coming up
with your three VA square footage and you multiply that by three VA, and
that's your starting point. That's your that's your your VA per square foot and
it's three VA per square foot and you multiply that by whatever your square footage
is, and that's your overall square footage. Okay. It also reminds you
in very easy to understand terms. Now it says unit loads include the following
lighting and receptacle outlets, and no additional load calculations shall be required. Now
I kind of said that before, but you had to read between the lines.
And people always complain that the NC is a difficult document to read,
and they always go, why did you just say what you wanted to say?
You have to remember that the folks that sit on code panels are very
technical and they like to keep things technical. But there has been an effort
to try to simplify, get rid of redundancy, remove certain terminologies, and
try to make it a little easier to read. Still not losing the fact
that this is not a document for the untrained it's this is very much a
document for the trained person. So you gotta understand some terminologies. You got
to You gotta kind of be in the in the program, right, you
gotta understand what we're talking about to kind of get the gist of this document.
You know, you're gonna crack it open and you're not familiar with the
language, the trade slang or whatever, you're gonna you're gonna struggle. You
are going to struggle. But this makes it very clear, right what's covered
now? I get this question all the time. In fact, on one
of our fast Tracks questions that are in our program. If you if you're
not familiar with our fast Tracks program, go to our website fast tracks system
dot com and watch the demo. Just go to the fast Tracks Black or
the Plus and we've got a demo on there. One of the questions that
people ask is if I have a rancher. Let's say there's a ranch dwelling
and it's being placed on an unfinished basement and they don't finish the basement out,
but they finished the first level, and they do a low calculation,
a size the service, and all this kind of good stuff, and then
it come back and aside they want to finish off the basement. Do I
have to change that service? Do I have to do a calculation if all
I'm doing is putting lighting and receptacles in there, just just normal general use
stuff. Well, when they did their calculation, they needed to calculate in
that square footage at three VA per square foot because it was clearly adaptable for
future use. Somebody was going to finish that off someday. It's irrelevant whether
it's finished off now. It was adaptable for future use, so you would
be counting the square footage from the basement as well as the first floor when
you did your original low calculation. So if I come back, electricians come,
I'm coming in later and I'm going to be finishing off that basement,
I don't have to add any additional load to that service. It is that
three VA per square foot that was figured in is adequate, perfectly fine.
Okay. So I think a lot of times when electricians do low calculations,
even today, you know, very few do anymore. They just look at
a house and go, oh, that looks like a two hundred AM.
Ask yourself this and be honest when you bid your last house, did you
actually do a low couch or did you just go and it looks like,
that's two hundred AMP. I've done this before, and that might nay or
may not be fine. Standard spec houses, standard stick house, that's probably
fine. Houses I used to do were eight thousand, ten thousand square foot
houses. I had to do a load calculation because I did not want to
put a service that was unnecessary. I did not want to put an eight
hundred AMP if a four hundred AMP could be fine. Bigger equipment, bigger
headache, more rules from the utility that I had to jump through the hoops
when you went to an eight hundred. I really focused on my low calcs.
I get it. HiT's a little fifteen hundred square foot twenty twenty five
hundred square foot house. Even up to a three thousand square foot house,
probably two hundred AP is going to be more than enough due to diversity.
It's probably fine. Now I do question at the day with all the other
stuff EV and all this other stuff that's being added, it may be who
view to do a low calculation, but every electrician said, at least know
how to do it right. You should know how to do it. But
when it comes to that basement, now they shouldn't have to do anything.
That three vapor square foot should alad be figured in the size of the service.
So nothing additional, and it makes it very clear here. Now it
also add additional language to make it very clear in this when you're doing this
unit load minimum unit load. It says the minimum lighting load shall be determined
using the multiple unit load and the floor area as determined into twenty five C.
So that's a reference back to how to calculate the outside dimensions to do
that for the dwelling unit. Okay, And then it says, you know
what, you're gonna have some motors, probably so motors that are rated less
than an eighth horse power, so they had to be less than an eighth
horse power. It's not one eighth horsepower or less. It says motors rated
less than eight horse power and connected to a lighting circuit should be considered part
of the minimum lighting load, so it's already encompassed in that three vapor square
foot. So typical ceiling fans where people wanted to argue that those motors weren't
accounted for a look, most of the ceiling fan motors are going to be
less than an eighth horse power. Then at the end of the day,
it's just it's just part of the three va per square foot. Don't have
to rack your brain, cause any brain mustard to go on. It's just
done. It's already considered. Okay. Now, one of the significant changes
in relocation now for to twenty that I kind of like, is that now
instead of it being two twenty dot twelve for the other than dwelling applications or
non dwelling occupancies where you need to get the vapor square foot, you know,
like for you know, dormitory, court houses, uh, you know,
convention centers, healthcare of clinics and on. That used to be two
twenty dot twelve. And I didn't like that because that was up kind of
in the branch circuit thing. It was kind of moved up and it just
really didn't make sense. So it is now into twenty dot forty two,
and it's still similar table as you're all familiar with. It's going to give
you the VA per square foot, and you know it's had some the notes
underneath it and been kind of expanded for clarity. That's great, but that's
where you're gonna get your vapor square foot when you're doing your calculation for like
office buildings and and things like that. Okay, retails, restaurants, religious
facilities, post offices, that's where you're gonna get that. So that's when
you start your like But the key thing to remember here, folks, is
that's lighting alone, and that's where a lot of people get confused. So
with dwellings, you're able to combine in general use receptacles I remember, and
not talking small appliance, laundry things like that. That's got its own rules,
that's got its own requirements. And to have fifteen hundred VA per small
appliance per laundry and the minimums that are required with that. We get that
to ten dot eleven. See all that type of rules, and in two
ten fifty two we get it. It's not but what I'm talking about here,
this is only the lighting load and the easiest way to remember it is
if it's not a dwelling, you're going to treat the lighting and the receptacles
separate. And it was always like that, but because of where it was
located, it just seemed to me. Other educators can disagree, and that's
fine. Everybody's entitled to their opinion, and I welcome other opinions. But
for me who primarily what sets me apart from a lot of other educators,
And this is not a pad on the back, folks, what I'm doing.
What I'm saying is I spend a lot of time in exam prep.
I'm known for my exam prep. Although I teach code to give analysis of
code, I answer code quick, I consult. In fact, I'm heading
next month up to New York for a case that I'm going to be expert
witness on. I spend a lot of time in the code. But I
am also known heavily for my exam prep. So when I tell you that
I think that this flows better, it flows better from a perspective of being
able to have students follow it a little bit better, and when they get
out into the field and they encounter an issue, they're much more adapted.
To being able to solve this issue because they understand how these things work.
So that's what I mean by that, And I just mean that I spend
a lot of time in exam prep. So when I say something flows better,
it's just my opinion. But I think students can't agree that it flows
better, right, or at least makes more sense if you will. So
having this removed from two twenty dot twelve and put in two twenty forty two
just just makes so much more sense. Okay, all right, So again
that's going to give you a vapor square foot and whatnot, and of course
you've got your energy code allowance, but I think most people ignore that.
That means that you can ignore the vapor square foot for the lighting and use
the energy code if you follow all of these points, these all these conditions
are met. That might be great. If you've got an injury management system
and an engineer's working this all out, and it may be that the overall
VA for the lighting is less due to the energy code, then it would
be based on using TO twenty forty two. Then you know what, that
engineer has to sign off on that and they're responsible for that and most of
the engineers I know aren't going to do that. I maybe a multi million
dollar system with the so much intricral stuff that controls everything, they might I
mean, that's not going to be what extra money. But the normal projects,
the engineers are gonna say, now I'm just going to go the VAPRI
and I'm just gonna follow the normal and I'm gonna do two twenty forty two
and be done with it. But you do have an energy code provision.
And now with everybody so focused on the energy code even more, I guess
that this one was there before. It was there in the twenty twenty.
I mean, this is not new, but you know I've probably not geared
towards following it. And now you also get into things like the office buildings.
These are going to be for the receptacles. It's only applies to office
buildings. You have two twenty out forty three. So again remember any other
building, it's one hundred and eighty VA per strap. But here you have
some office buildings and it's going to give you a choice of using the one
hundred and eighty v A per strap or one VA per square foot whichever,
okay is the larger. That's what you're going to use, and then of
course you have to twenty forty four hotels and mode TESTE. How it's logically
flowing a little bit better now when it comes to the general lighting and allowances.
Right, remember that table that used to be too twenty do I think
it was? To twenty dot forty two, which is the for dwelling units,
right, the first three thousand, one hundred percent, the next one
hundred and seventeen thousand and thirty five percent. Anything over one hundred and twenty
is at twenty five percent. Well, that's now to twenty dot forty five,
same table, same there, it's just been moved. These are the
demand factors that you get to apply to the lighting loads. Let's saying the
dwelling, to the small appliance, to the laundry, all of that that
you compile. This is where you get to apply those things. And what
twenty forty five says is the demand factor specified in table two twenty dot forty
five shall apply to that portion of the total brand circuit load calculating for general
illumination. They shall not be applied in determining the number of brand circuits for
the general lighting. So you're lighting. You're gonna you're gonna know the number
of brand circuit based on the loads you have, and you're gonna be the
number of brand circuits to depending on how many luminaires you had, And that's
all based on the loads whatever the luminaires are. You don't use this to
do that. Okay. So if I have a building and I have all
these lighting circuits, they're gonna have a certain amount of load to them,
and I got to size the brands, so I could have a need for
twenty brand circuits, where if I use this, it might show that only
needed eight. But you don't use this for that, Okay. You have
to use the brand circuits. You have to know that you're gonna be adequately
supplying those loads. This is just for the demand of the service, So
that's what reminds you. You don't use this for determining how many brand circuits
you need to supply that general lighting. This is just because it's under Part
three. This is just for the service or feeder application. Okay. Now,
one of the things that I often tell people in here is that twenty
five if we're doing the dwelling, and you remember what it allowed me to
do. It allowed me to pick up the lighting as well as it allowed
me to pick up those general use receptacle applications, and it allowed me to
pick up other things in there like the laundry and the small clients. And
when I when I'm applying this, I am able to apply this to that
all of that, okay, So that is one aspect of that people will
lose out one that I'm permitted to apply that all right. Now, I
guess when when people see that or they get confused with that and they start
to say, well, I get get confused, and how I'm able to
apply all that? You have to understand that that's all part of the unit
load at least when we're talking about dwelling units for example. And that's what
allows me to apply that under to twenty forty five because it says type of
ocupancy dwelling unit. Right, let's see here again goes into show windows,
track lighting, and then of course it has receptacles again other than dwelling units.
So remember the rules for whether it's multi multi outlet assemblies or it's at
one hundred and eighty VA per square foot. If you're not dealing with the
office rule that we talked about. Then you have other than dwellings, so
now you get to apply an additional demand factor to non dwelling receptacle loads,
and that's where you would use to twenty forty seven for that application, right,
And then of course then you got to twenty to fifty, which is
the motors that I don't think they added much clarity to that, but it's
still reminds you that motors and air conditionings basically, long story short, you
take the motor at one hundred twenty five percent, and when you're doing the
low calculation, you just take the largest motor at one hundred twenty five percent
if you have multiple motors, and then you have the sum of all the
other motors. So that's where we tell you in a calculation, find the
largest motor and try to capture that additional twenty five percent because it's probably already
been captured at one hundred percent, So all you're trying to do is get
that additional twenty five percent in order to comply with two twenty fifties rules.
And that's the same thing for air conditioning, where it tells you to take
it at one hundred and twenty five percent. Well, that's just kind of
and I usually tell students that's the twenty five percent rule. Okay, but
remember this one in two twenty fifty doesn't just apply to dwellings. This is
broad. It applies to all motor applications, and it's not just a dwelling
unit. But it seems to me when I'm explaining it to people, it
seems to always be easier to do it in a dwelling application. Right in
two twenty dot fifty one space heating, baseboard heating, all that kind of
stuff that you're heating. And then of course two twenty out fifty two that
is your And I think I said two ten to fifty two earlier for the
for this, but no, it's two twenty out fifty two. This is
where you get the fifteen hundred VA for the minimum of two small appliants.
You could have more than one, I mean more than two, but you
have to have at least two. And that's the laundry where you take it
at fifteen hundred as well. If you have three laundries circuits, then you
take each one at fifteen hundred. If you have six small appliance circuits,
you take each one in fifteen hundred, okay, and then of course you
get into your appliances. So I'm not going to go into everything here.
I'm going to cut this one off. But you can see that the flow
is much better, right to me, the beginning, the load end of
the flow is much better. Also for twenty twenty three, we added people
ask how do you incorporate ev SE Okay, so electric vehicles supply equipment,
how do you figure that add into your service or feed or load calculation?
Will Now you have two twenty to fifty seven that's going to do that,
and it's basically telling you that the ev SC load shall be calculated at either
seventy two hundred watts, which to me or equivalent to VA. That is
your base value. Unless you know the equipment that's being installed is a higher
nameplate value, then you take whichever is larger. Now, if the engineer
or whoever's designing it is putting in an ev system and they just a note
that you're doing that, then you base that on seventy two dats. Okay.
Now, if they know the equipment right that's going to be installed,
then that's that's another thing. For example, if it's a fifty amp unit,
it's a level two charging system, then it's probably going to be greater
than seventy two hundred watts, okay, because typically seventy two hundred watts is
going to equate to about thirty AM. But if they know the equipment,
it's a minimum of seventy two hundred or the rating of the equipment, whichever
is greater. There's there, I'm gonna tell you this much. If they
don't know, but you know you're gonna have an EVS in the system,
like maybe you're in California where that's you know they're starting to want to mandate
stuff like that. Then go on and add the seventy two hundred into your
calculation. You don't have to speculate, well, what if they come in
and put a bigger one. This is the service calculation. So luckily there's
enough to diversity. It'd be nice to know what you're installing, but at
a minimum, if you know there's an EVSC going to be installed, at
least a minimum of seventy two hundred. If there is no nameplate or you
don't know the equipment, okay, the good news is there's going to be
enough diversity now when it's also going to dictate what circuit is being run to
it. Obviously, if they're running a six gauge or something like that,
then it's probably going to be a piece of equipment that's going to be greater
than seventy two hundred watts, So you're gonna have to do your due diligence
and check it out. I'm just telling you the CODES is a minimum.
Now, if you're going to have an EVS in your building, this is
not requiring one, by the way, it's if you do have it,
okay, then it's seventy two hundred lots minimum, okay, or the nameplate,
whichever is greater. And then of course you have two twenty dot sixty,
which is you know, kind of drove people crazy for years. This
is a non coincident load. This is dealing with two loads that are not
going to be operated simultaneously. This does not just deal with like AC versus
heat. That's just an example we use as an educator, but this could
be in a commercial, this could be an industrial. If you have two
pieces of equipment that are not designed to run at the same time, then
you use the one that's larger than the other. One, and so if
you size it to the large one, then if the small one runs,
who cares. So that's what we mean by non question. You don't have
to take both of them into consideration when adding the loads, because the smaller
is not going to be the larger. It is not going to be on
at the same time as the smaller or the lesser, so it's perfectly fine.
So that's what we mean by non coincident load. Okay, Now there
was a change in twenty twenty that most people are aware of. When you're
comparing these non coincident loads, right, is, if you're comparing two loads
and they are non coincident, you take the one that's the larger if the
one is the lesser. Okay, it happens to have is well, if
you read a code, it says if the motor or air conditioning load is
part of the non coincident loaded is not the largest, so it's the lesser,
then you take it at one hundred and twenty five percent of either the
motor load or the air conditional load, whichever one you're dealing with, whichever
larger, and you use that in the calculation to compare which one that you
use so when we're doing a dwelling, we use this as an example where
you have the heat versus AC. Right, and and let's say that the
heating and a system, the heating and air conditioning is is thermostatically interlocked so
that the heat can't be on when the AC is on. Let's just use
that as an example because that's easy for people to understand. If I do
my calculation, my load for my heating is greater than the air conditioning load.
Remembering that I'm going to include the air handler. If that's used to
blow the heat around, I'm going to use that in both of my calculations.
If the heat is greater than the AC, but the largest motor in
the building, which is probably in a dwelling, it's can probably be your
air conditioning unit, the air conditioning compressor. If that's the largest motor,
then this is telling me to compare the two by taking that motor at one
hundred and twenty five percent plus the some of the other loads like an air
handler and condenser and a condensing fan, and now compare that to the heat.
Again. If the heat is still greater than you just go with the
heat, and now the AC is discounted. It's gone, But you still
have to go find that second largest motor because you still gotta you still gotta
meet to twenty fifty, right, and that probably gonna be something like a
garbage disposer or whatnot. Okay, and you got you gotta get that extra
twenty five percent. Okay, we talked about that earlier. But the heat's
the one that's gonna win. And that's the one you're gonna size because it's
greater than it. So it's okay because it's much greater that when the AC
is running, it's not greater than the heat, so there's no harm.
You're sizing everything for the greater or the loads. Makes sense. But let's
say that that air conditioning compressor at one hundred and twenty five plus the air
handler and a condensing fan ended up being greater than the heat all of a
sudden, now it overtakes the heat. Well, now you're getting rid of
the heat and you're using the air conditioning values. Well, now, since
I took that air conditioning at one twenty five and that was the largest motor,
now I don't have to do two twenty dot fifty. I don't have
to go looking for the largest motor at one hundred twenty five percent, because
I already did that in my calculation for the non coincident load, I'd use
the air conditioning at one twenty five. See I didn't. I had to
use it in order to follow the rules of two twenty sixty. But if
the heat had been greater and I'd discounted the air conditioning altogether, then I
still have to go hunting for the largest motor and I can't use the air
conditioner because that's already been discounted. It's removed because we went with the heat.
Hopefully that makes sense, okay. And when I see people do low
calculations in our program and their numbers don't really come up to the end when
we asked them to do a low cock and hey, I'm telling you,
our course is not easy. Ask any of our students, and it's not
easy. We ask you to calculate the loads on the dwelling. We give
you all the variables, and we ask you to do it. Unit eight,
eleven and thirteen are literally the hardest units in our program, and people
struggle. But that's a good thing. It's good to struggle. It means
that you're gonna remember it. If you're in the program, a structured program
like mine, and you're just trying to bullet through it and get done like
it's a freaking sprint, then you wasted your money. I'm the first one
to tell you, I'm not gonna give your money back. Okay, I'm
not giving you your money back. You made the stupid choice to try to
race through it, but you have to remember it's there for a reason and
it's complicated. Don't ask to throw in the towel. Don't say, Paul,
give me the answers. Keep doing the units until you get it,
and once you get over seventy percent, I'm going to give you the answers.
And if you still don't get it, come to our Wednesday night sessions
seven thirty every Wednesday night and ask say, hey, Paul, can you
go over unit six question review number eight and I'll go review it for you.
Okay, that's the importance of coming to it now. If you have
if you have a question that's just out of the ballpark, then you need
to give us twenty four hours in advance so we can put together a presentation
so they don't kind of get people confused trying to wing it. But if
it's part of the program, then you can come to the live event and
you can ask Paul, can you explain this question in this unit. That's
what it's for. So I think people got confused with the Wednesday nights about
that. That's what it's for. I'm not there to entertain the general public.
I'm there for my students. I just decided to make it go public
if you will, okay, anyway, that's kind of a synopsis. I
won't go into the optional method because it wasn't really a significant you know,
too bad a significant changes in that. But there was something that was added
in the twenty twenty three which is dealing with energy management systems EMS under two
twenty dot seventy and this is saying, look, and this is under the
standard method value way. It's under part three. It says, if an
energy management system is used to limit the current to a feeder or service in
accordance with seven fifty dot thirty and that's all those rules, and you meet
all the rules for energy management, you're able to meet all these It says
a single value equal to the maximum and peer set point of the EMS shall
be permitted to be used in low calculations for these service or feeder. It
says the set point value that's whatever you set it to not exceed in your
energy management system. Mean it's going to shunt off loads, shut off loads,
going to manage the system. If that's what you've got, then it
says the set point values in the EMS shall be considered a continuous load for
the purpose of load calculations. So whatever that value is that you set as
that set point, you take that at one hundred and twenty five percent size
everything accordingly. But you are able to use that value in the EMS system,
and it is and you have to meet all the caveats in seven fifty.
I have not today seen that. I know that that's new. I
have not seen any buildings that follow that, which an example of this might
be a big office building which the service might be quite large. When you
do the calculation under the standard method most people going you are going to be
using optionals anyway. But they do the standard methods, they calculate it all
out. But then they have some type of system management system that is cycling
off loads, limiting loads. It's going to keep the values to not exceed
a certain level. Well, then obviously if that's the case and you meet
all the caveats that are there in seven fifty for those EMS type systems,
let's say that you meet it, you're compliant with that, you're an engineer,
you design it. So maybe under the standard calculation it was four hundred
amps, but under this EMS, your set point maybe is two hundred amps.
Well, you can use that two hundred amps. Remember you're going to
take it as continuous loads for sizing things like conductors and devices. But I'm
able to use that set point. That's huge because that uses technology that's trying
to create a way of, for lack of a better term, keeping the
loads at a set point, shunted in some way, keeping it from getting
to a certain point, and then you're designing your service or feeder load based
on that. Right, So don't ever assume that that's a given, because
you know, that's something that's going to definitely be an engineered system. That's
not something that the normal electrician, every day sparky is going to be working
with. Okay, so again, but it's there, and there's engineers that
are flewing intoing that. So that's you know, that's good other than that,
folks, everything else really didn't change too much. And my opinion was,
how did I feel the flow went? And that's my flow. Now.
The only other thing I will tell you into twenty that I think it
makes a lot of sense is it did expand into a part six for healthcare
facilities when it deals with receptacle loads and the demand factors you get for receptacle
loads was introduced. We'll probably talk about that in another series. And then
of course low calculations for Marina's boatyards, which is Part seven. All of
that was added to article to twenty. And so again it stands out to
me because it flat out tells you that we have our set parameters that we
want you to do when it comes to the low calculations for healthcare facilities and
a low calculations for marinas and things like that. Now, I will remind
you that the healthcare facility you would you would use the standard method as you
normally would. The only addition to Part six is the receptacle load aspect of
it. And that's the same thing for Marina. You still got your low
calcu You're gonna do understandard method, right, But when it comes to the
predominant loading. When it comes to receptacles, you do get some allowances now
under Part six and Part seven of Article two twenty. So that's a welcome
addition. Definitely clears things up when it comes to receptacle loads, and it's
kind of gets rid of those confusions that people would be all over the place
in the different five fifty five for marinas and things like that. So are
not five is five ft five? Yeah? It might be. So it
gets you, you know, keeps you from being It helps reduce some of
the confusion that you have out there, and so I'm all for anything that
can make it so much easier for people that have to be able to navigate
and flow in all that type of things. So welcome addition, folks.
So that's my take to twenty. I think the structuring of that and what
they did with that is probably my favorite change from a geeky calculation standpoint,
That would be my favorite change in the twenty twenty excuse me, twenty twenty
three edition, and I welcome that to the code panels to bring that clarity
everywhere. But good job to the panel that did that for article to twenty.
Great job. Hey, remember folks, if you've got questions you want
to submit to me. You want my opinion on something, you want help
in business, just giving you advice marketing. You want to know what my
biggest failure in business ever was, I'm more happy to share. I'm very
transparent. One thing about me is I'm very approachable. I'm not just somebody
that goes on a stage and teaches classes to auditorium things. I am a
one on one guy. I'm a master electrician. I'm very proud of it,
and I'm very approachable, and I want you to be able to reach
out and ask me anything. Paul Abernathy dot com is the portal that we
put together for you to be able to reach out to me and get real
human answers to your questions. Okay, all right, folks, till next
time, Stay safe, God bless. If you need me, Paul Abnaty
dot com that's the place to be. Ask