Ask What Up? What Up? Everybody? Welcome to another episode of Let's
Ask Paul, the podcast where you, the listener, get to ask me
the instructor, anything you want about the Nationaltical Code, anything you want about
electrical in general. If you're a fast track student, you get to ask
about the course, anything you don't understand. This is the resource for you,
and it all is brought to you by Wicks and no charge at all.
Just go to Paul Abernathy dot com and you can submit your question on
the free portal and I will answer your questions either in a email back to
you or if selected in an upcoming podcast much like today. So I want
to answer question I was. Actually I have a list of questions that I
have to do, and it seems like Lady of the majority of them,
I've been replying back with email, but I did get one. It popped
in and I just kind of took it out of order and saw it came
in and it's from a student who was in our program, and so I
wanted to address the question and kind of help them out, since you know,
early in the program. I think they're early in the program. So
I will try to do my best to break this down for you. Okay,
So here's the question, says, hey, I am a member of
the fast Tracks program on the residential electrician one practice test question thirteen. Where
a forty gallon storage type electric water heater has a nameplate rating a forty five
hundred watts at two hundred and forty volts, what is the maximum standard size
circuit breaker the NC permits to protect the water heater? Why would you use
four twenty two dot eleven E three. So they've given me their references and
not for twenty two dot thirteen. Thanks? All right, Well, if
you're in the fast Track and thanks for the question. By the way,
if you're in the fast Tracks program, then your answer is going to be
very detailed in Unit six of the program. So since you're doing practice exams
that are at the end of the program, I want you to make sure
you go back and you go into unit six and you're going to see a
illustration and it's going to talk about individual brand circuits for a water heater.
And I need you to go back and read that because there's some really key
bullet points in there and it really lays it all out for you. But
I'm going to kind of try to break this down for you a little bit.
Now, if you look at the question, it wanted to know what
the maximum standard size. Okay, so the first thing I'll tell you is
when you're looking at the National Electrical Code and you're looking at two thirteen because
you made the reference, that's storage type water heaters where they're one hundred and
twenty gallons are less, and it says it shall have an ampacity rating not
less than one hundred and twenty percent of the ampure rating of the water heater.
Okay, now I'm reading out of the twenty twenty three edition of the
NC, so keep that in mind. But it's pretty much the same gist
here. Now when you look at it, it says at least that is
a minimum rule. And if you look at the beginning of it and really
slow it down, it says the brand circuit overcurrent device and conductors. So
we're sizing the conductors under this rule, and those conductors can't be less than
one hundred twenty five percent. So if we were to just do the math,
you have a forty five hundred watt water heater, right, and you're
going to divide that by two hundred and forty volts. That's what the voltage
is. That's going to give you eighteen point seven five amp years and it's
said for the conductors, it says to take that which is eighteen point seven
five at one hundred and twenty five percent, that is twenty three point four
four amps. Okay, so I'm going to have to have a conductor and
in the course the small conductor rules are going to kick in. So in
order to remember this is also something that you have to keep in mind.
This is going to put you in a ten gage size conductor. Okay,
So that's where we're going to get the size now. So but that's just
for conductor sizing, right, That's that's all we did. Now, the
minimum size over current device would be the same thing. I would take that
twenty three point four four because again it's eighteen point seven five times one hundred
twenty five percent if you're following the four twenty two dot thirteen, and that
would be since we know that in two forty dot six a a twenty three
point four four amp radd over current device doesn't exist, so that would be
a twenty five am I'd be a minimum, right, But then there's a
maximum rule that we're allowed to go to. And this is why the question
says, what is the maximum, not the minimum, the maximum. And
as I tell students all the time, subtlety in the way the questions are
written are very important, and I need you to take the time and look
at a question. This is an example where the students submitted it, and
you know, in all fairness, they didn't understand that there's a difference between
four twenty two dot thirteen, which is a minimum. It has to be
at least that then there is a maximum rule for the overcurrent protection. Okay,
all right, so let's kind of look at that. So when we
look at the ruling, now we already covered the minimum. So now let's
look at the reference city gave and that would be four twenty two dot eleven
e three for those that have your codebook. That is a single non motor
operated appliance. Absolutely a water heater falls under that. It's non motor operated.
It just a water heater at heating elements. Okay, So let's look
at the rule based on what we have right here, all right, So
we're calculating the maximum overcurrent protection because when you're under four twenty two dot eleven.
We're not doing conductors. Unlike four twenty two dot thirteen specified the overcurrent
and the minimum size conductors. Here, we're just looking at overcurrent protection.
That's all four twenty two dot eleven's dealing with. So when we go down
and look at E you've got, I'm gonna read it to you. It
says an E is single non motor operated appliances. It says if the brand
circuit supplies a single non motor operated appliance, the rating of the overcurrent protection
shall comply with the following. Now, there's three conditions here. Three things.
Number one shall not exceed okay, not exceed the overcurrent protection rating marked
on the appliance. So if it's marked on the appliance, this is what
the overcurrent protection is. That's what's stamped on it. Then you don't exceed
it. That's not going to be the case in our worder heater. Our
word heater had a nameplate, but all ahead was wattage on it and voltage
and that type of thing. Okay, So one E one is not applicable
to us. Number two not exceeding twenty amp years if the overcurrent protection rating
is not marked okay, and the appliance is rated thirteen point three amps or
less. Well, we know that's not the case because we already did the
math, and we know that the forty five hundred divided by two forty was
already eighteen point seven five before we did anything, So we already know that
it's over thirteen point three. So item number two is not going to be
in play. So let's look at the third one. The third one says
not to exceed one hundred and fifty percent of the appliance rated current, And
we calculated that out. We did that, right, and I'll show it
to you again. It says not to exceed one hundred and fifty percent of
the appliance rated current if the over current protection rating is not marked, and
it typically is not on a order heater. Okay, and the appliance is
rated over thirteen point three AMP. Years of course ours was. It was
eighteen point seven five, remember before we did anything. That's just that's just
taking the forty five by two forty, right. It says where the one
hundred and fifty percent of the appliance rating does not correspond to the standard overcurrent
device AMPUR rating that's in forty six eight. By the way, it says
the next higher standard ratings shall be permitted, So this is a built in
next size up rule that's allowed. Okay, So we already know the conductor
is going to be ten gage. Okay, copper, we always assume copper
and less stated otherwise. But the overcurrent protection here's what we're looking at,
all right. So we're gonna take that eighteen point seven five, which remember
now, that was the forty five hundred divided by two forty to get our
amps, and we multiply that by one hundred and fifty percent, so it's
eighteen point seven five. And if you're asking where we got that again,
that's the AMP rating when you took the forty five hundred and divided by two
forty, it's eighteen point seven five times one hundred and fifty percent, and
that is twenty eight point one two five. We're gonna around that to twenty
eight point one three, okay, drop off the five, round it up
so we can keep it to two decimal places here, all right, So
that's twenty eight point one three. Okay. Now at twenty eight point one
three, what are you gonna do. Remember you're gonna go to two forty
dot six A. Is there a breaker rated for that? The answer is
no. But the next standard size, because of the permission in this item
number three, is that I can go up to the next standard size.
Well at twenty eight point one three. The next standard size is thirty amp
years. All right, so what do I do? I choose the overcurrent
protective device that's rated thirty AMP years. Now, once I select that,
we know it can't be less. The conductors can't be less than one hundred
and twenty five percent of the AMP rating, which in this case was eighteen
point seven five times one hundred twenty five percent. We did that earlier when
we sized the conductor, and that was twenty three point four four. Right
now, since twenty three point four four, since we didn't tell you anything
and you have terminal limitations and temperature limitations that are in one ten fourteen C.
Then we got to remember there are small conductor rules and two forty four
D. And so somebody might say, well, why didn't we choose a
twelve gauge Because a twelve gauge has to be protected at twenty amp years under
the small conductor rules and two forty four D, whereas a ten gauge would
be protected at thirty Now, we already established that our maximum size over current
protection it's thirty amps. So the question asked us about the maximum. So
we have thirty amps now, regardless of the fact that we calculated the minimum
ampacity at twenty three point four four, right, we know that the small
conductor rules are going to say, all right, well, if it's thirty
amps, then it and that it has to be at least a ten gauge.
So under the small connected rules, that's what we're going to invoke on
nets. So we're gonna have a ten gage copper unless state it otherwise,
and we're going to have a thirty amp rated over current protected device. And
that is the maximum overcurrent protection. The minimum would be twenty five, the
maximum would be thirty. And so that's the importance of that question to the
student is be very careful how the question is asked, because twenty two dot
thirteen is a minimum rule as far as minimum size brand circuits and minimum size
overcurrent protection. When you're dealing with the storage type boarder heater that one hundred
and twenty gallons are less, but of course it is still a what a
non motor appliance, and so we're looking for what the maximum overcurrent protection could
be and that's where four twenty two eleven e three comes into the equation.
Again, it's all about the question, it's all about how it's asked.
Also, folks, I want to remind you out there that in our fast
Tracks program when you're doing those practice exams, there are about eight wonky questions
in there. Don't bombard me, You'll know when it's wrong, and it's
just evident. I can't change them because we purchased that for use in our
program. We have a lot more questions in there than that. Obviously,
eight wonky questions out of eight hundred, and that database is pretty damn good.
But we also recently added another seven or eight hundred to your database of
new questions, and those are pretty pretty good questions too. So again,
if I could fix those little wonky ones, I would, But since we
buy that, that would be an issue. It's d Waltz package. It's
something that we're not allowed to change. Trust me, I have submitted them
as being wrong, but they do don't listen to me. So think of
them as the least d egg and if you find them, you'll know when
you find them if you're a fast Track student. But it's such a small
amount, and there's always every educator puts out stuff that they end up having
to doing adendum of corrections. In our case with the twenty twenty three we
don't have to do that because everything's pretty much been tidied up when it comes
to the course material. But the database does have some wonky questions in it.
Now I believe in the twenty twenty three edition you're not going to see
those because I think you're only going to have access to the new database.
So that tells me this student is working in the twenty twenty edition or the
twenty seventeen and that's where the wonky questions are. So you're not going to
really have that in the twenty twenty three edition of our Fast Tracks program one
because we decided not to add that database because of those slight errors in it,
so we put a new database in there. Okay, just so you
got a heads up. All right, all right, folks, that's all
I've got for this episode. Remember, if you want to submit your questions
to me, please just go to Paul Abernathy dot com. There's a portal
there putting your questions. Send it away and I'll answer it in an email
or, as with this episode, if selected, I will answer it on
air and hopefully help you out. Until next time, folks, stay safe,
God bless and thanks for listening to our podcasts on all of your favorite
podcasting platforms. We appreciate you ask