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Ask What Up? What Up?
Everybody? Welcome to another episode of Let's

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Ask Paul, the podcast where you, the listener, get to ask me

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the instructor, anything you want about
the Nationaltical Code, anything you want about

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electrical in general. If you're a
fast track student, you get to ask

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about the course, anything you don't
understand. This is the resource for you,

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and it all is brought to you
by Wicks and no charge at all.

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Just go to Paul Abernathy dot com
and you can submit your question on

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the free portal and I will answer
your questions either in a email back to

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you or if selected in an upcoming
podcast much like today. So I want

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to answer question I was. Actually
I have a list of questions that I

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have to do, and it seems
like Lady of the majority of them,

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I've been replying back with email,
but I did get one. It popped

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in and I just kind of took
it out of order and saw it came

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in and it's from a student who
was in our program, and so I

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wanted to address the question and kind
of help them out, since you know,

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early in the program. I think
they're early in the program. So

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I will try to do my best
to break this down for you. Okay,

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So here's the question, says,
hey, I am a member of

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the fast Tracks program on the residential
electrician one practice test question thirteen. Where

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a forty gallon storage type electric water
heater has a nameplate rating a forty five

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hundred watts at two hundred and forty
volts, what is the maximum standard size

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circuit breaker the NC permits to protect
the water heater? Why would you use

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four twenty two dot eleven E three. So they've given me their references and

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not for twenty two dot thirteen.
Thanks? All right, Well, if

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you're in the fast Track and thanks
for the question. By the way,

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if you're in the fast Tracks program, then your answer is going to be

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very detailed in Unit six of the
program. So since you're doing practice exams

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that are at the end of the
program, I want you to make sure

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you go back and you go into
unit six and you're going to see a

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illustration and it's going to talk about
individual brand circuits for a water heater.

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And I need you to go back
and read that because there's some really key

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bullet points in there and it really
lays it all out for you. But

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I'm going to kind of try to
break this down for you a little bit.

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Now, if you look at the
question, it wanted to know what

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the maximum standard size. Okay,
so the first thing I'll tell you is

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when you're looking at the National Electrical
Code and you're looking at two thirteen because

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you made the reference, that's storage
type water heaters where they're one hundred and

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twenty gallons are less, and it
says it shall have an ampacity rating not

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less than one hundred and twenty percent
of the ampure rating of the water heater.

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Okay, now I'm reading out of
the twenty twenty three edition of the

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NC, so keep that in mind. But it's pretty much the same gist

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here. Now when you look at
it, it says at least that is

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a minimum rule. And if you
look at the beginning of it and really

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slow it down, it says the
brand circuit overcurrent device and conductors. So

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we're sizing the conductors under this rule, and those conductors can't be less than

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one hundred twenty five percent. So
if we were to just do the math,

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you have a forty five hundred watt
water heater, right, and you're

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going to divide that by two hundred
and forty volts. That's what the voltage

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is. That's going to give you
eighteen point seven five amp years and it's

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said for the conductors, it says
to take that which is eighteen point seven

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five at one hundred and twenty five
percent, that is twenty three point four

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four amps. Okay, so I'm
going to have to have a conductor and

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in the course the small conductor rules
are going to kick in. So in

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order to remember this is also something
that you have to keep in mind.

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This is going to put you in
a ten gage size conductor. Okay,

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So that's where we're going to get
the size now. So but that's just

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for conductor sizing, right, That's
that's all we did. Now, the

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minimum size over current device would be
the same thing. I would take that

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twenty three point four four because again
it's eighteen point seven five times one hundred

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twenty five percent if you're following the
four twenty two dot thirteen, and that

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would be since we know that in
two forty dot six a a twenty three

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point four four amp radd over current
device doesn't exist, so that would be

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a twenty five am I'd be a
minimum, right, But then there's a

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maximum rule that we're allowed to go
to. And this is why the question

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says, what is the maximum,
not the minimum, the maximum. And

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as I tell students all the time, subtlety in the way the questions are

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written are very important, and I
need you to take the time and look

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at a question. This is an
example where the students submitted it, and

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you know, in all fairness,
they didn't understand that there's a difference between

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four twenty two dot thirteen, which
is a minimum. It has to be

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at least that then there is a
maximum rule for the overcurrent protection. Okay,

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all right, so let's kind of
look at that. So when we

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look at the ruling, now we
already covered the minimum. So now let's

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look at the reference city gave and
that would be four twenty two dot eleven

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e three for those that have your
codebook. That is a single non motor

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operated appliance. Absolutely a water heater
falls under that. It's non motor operated.

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It just a water heater at heating
elements. Okay, So let's look

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at the rule based on what we
have right here, all right, So

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we're calculating the maximum overcurrent protection because
when you're under four twenty two dot eleven.

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We're not doing conductors. Unlike four
twenty two dot thirteen specified the overcurrent

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and the minimum size conductors. Here, we're just looking at overcurrent protection.

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That's all four twenty two dot eleven's
dealing with. So when we go down

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and look at E you've got,
I'm gonna read it to you. It

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says an E is single non motor
operated appliances. It says if the brand

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circuit supplies a single non motor operated
appliance, the rating of the overcurrent protection

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shall comply with the following. Now, there's three conditions here. Three things.

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Number one shall not exceed okay,
not exceed the overcurrent protection rating marked

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on the appliance. So if it's
marked on the appliance, this is what

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the overcurrent protection is. That's what's
stamped on it. Then you don't exceed

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it. That's not going to be
the case in our worder heater. Our

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word heater had a nameplate, but
all ahead was wattage on it and voltage

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and that type of thing. Okay, So one E one is not applicable

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to us. Number two not exceeding
twenty amp years if the overcurrent protection rating

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is not marked okay, and the
appliance is rated thirteen point three amps or

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less. Well, we know that's
not the case because we already did the

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math, and we know that the
forty five hundred divided by two forty was

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already eighteen point seven five before we
did anything, So we already know that

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it's over thirteen point three. So
item number two is not going to be

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in play. So let's look at
the third one. The third one says

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not to exceed one hundred and fifty
percent of the appliance rated current, And

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we calculated that out. We did
that, right, and I'll show it

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to you again. It says not
to exceed one hundred and fifty percent of

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the appliance rated current if the over
current protection rating is not marked, and

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it typically is not on a order
heater. Okay, and the appliance is

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rated over thirteen point three AMP.
Years of course ours was. It was

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eighteen point seven five, remember before
we did anything. That's just that's just

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taking the forty five by two forty, right. It says where the one

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hundred and fifty percent of the appliance
rating does not correspond to the standard overcurrent

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device AMPUR rating that's in forty six
eight. By the way, it says

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the next higher standard ratings shall be
permitted, So this is a built in

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next size up rule that's allowed.
Okay, So we already know the conductor

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is going to be ten gage.
Okay, copper, we always assume copper

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and less stated otherwise. But the
overcurrent protection here's what we're looking at,

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all right. So we're gonna take
that eighteen point seven five, which remember

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now, that was the forty five
hundred divided by two forty to get our

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amps, and we multiply that by
one hundred and fifty percent, so it's

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eighteen point seven five. And if
you're asking where we got that again,

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that's the AMP rating when you took
the forty five hundred and divided by two

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forty, it's eighteen point seven five
times one hundred and fifty percent, and

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that is twenty eight point one two
five. We're gonna around that to twenty

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eight point one three, okay,
drop off the five, round it up

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so we can keep it to two
decimal places here, all right, So

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that's twenty eight point one three.
Okay. Now at twenty eight point one

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three, what are you gonna do. Remember you're gonna go to two forty

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dot six A. Is there a
breaker rated for that? The answer is

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no. But the next standard size, because of the permission in this item

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number three, is that I can
go up to the next standard size.

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Well at twenty eight point one three. The next standard size is thirty amp

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years. All right, so what
do I do? I choose the overcurrent

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protective device that's rated thirty AMP years. Now, once I select that,

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we know it can't be less.
The conductors can't be less than one hundred

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and twenty five percent of the AMP
rating, which in this case was eighteen

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point seven five times one hundred twenty
five percent. We did that earlier when

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we sized the conductor, and that
was twenty three point four four. Right

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now, since twenty three point four
four, since we didn't tell you anything

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and you have terminal limitations and temperature
limitations that are in one ten fourteen C.

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Then we got to remember there are
small conductor rules and two forty four

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D. And so somebody might say, well, why didn't we choose a

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twelve gauge Because a twelve gauge has
to be protected at twenty amp years under

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the small conductor rules and two forty
four D, whereas a ten gauge would

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be protected at thirty Now, we
already established that our maximum size over current

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protection it's thirty amps. So the
question asked us about the maximum. So

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we have thirty amps now, regardless
of the fact that we calculated the minimum

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ampacity at twenty three point four four, right, we know that the small

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conductor rules are going to say,
all right, well, if it's thirty

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amps, then it and that it
has to be at least a ten gauge.

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So under the small connected rules,
that's what we're going to invoke on

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nets. So we're gonna have a
ten gage copper unless state it otherwise,

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and we're going to have a thirty
amp rated over current protected device. And

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that is the maximum overcurrent protection.
The minimum would be twenty five, the

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maximum would be thirty. And so
that's the importance of that question to the

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student is be very careful how the
question is asked, because twenty two dot

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thirteen is a minimum rule as far
as minimum size brand circuits and minimum size

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overcurrent protection. When you're dealing with
the storage type boarder heater that one hundred

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and twenty gallons are less, but
of course it is still a what a

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non motor appliance, and so we're
looking for what the maximum overcurrent protection could

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be and that's where four twenty two
eleven e three comes into the equation.

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Again, it's all about the question, it's all about how it's asked.

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Also, folks, I want to
remind you out there that in our fast

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Tracks program when you're doing those practice
exams, there are about eight wonky questions

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in there. Don't bombard me,
You'll know when it's wrong, and it's

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just evident. I can't change them
because we purchased that for use in our

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program. We have a lot more
questions in there than that. Obviously,

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eight wonky questions out of eight hundred, and that database is pretty damn good.

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But we also recently added another seven
or eight hundred to your database of

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new questions, and those are pretty
pretty good questions too. So again,

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if I could fix those little wonky
ones, I would, But since we

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buy that, that would be an
issue. It's d Waltz package. It's

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something that we're not allowed to change. Trust me, I have submitted them

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as being wrong, but they do
don't listen to me. So think of

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them as the least d egg and
if you find them, you'll know when

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you find them if you're a fast
Track student. But it's such a small

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amount, and there's always every educator
puts out stuff that they end up having

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to doing adendum of corrections. In
our case with the twenty twenty three we

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don't have to do that because everything's
pretty much been tidied up when it comes

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to the course material. But the
database does have some wonky questions in it.

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Now I believe in the twenty twenty
three edition you're not going to see

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those because I think you're only going
to have access to the new database.

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So that tells me this student is
working in the twenty twenty edition or the

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twenty seventeen and that's where the wonky
questions are. So you're not going to

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really have that in the twenty twenty
three edition of our Fast Tracks program one

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because we decided not to add that
database because of those slight errors in it,

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so we put a new database in
there. Okay, just so you

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got a heads up. All right, all right, folks, that's all

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I've got for this episode. Remember, if you want to submit your questions

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to me, please just go to
Paul Abernathy dot com. There's a portal

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there putting your questions. Send it
away and I'll answer it in an email

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or, as with this episode,
if selected, I will answer it on

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air and hopefully help you out.
Until next time, folks, stay safe,

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God bless and thanks for listening to
our podcasts on all of your favorite

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podcasting platforms. We appreciate you ask