Larger wires at service drop

[Jim Port]

Mark,

As it has been said elsewhere in this post the wires are able to dissapate heat into the air and have different insulations. Typical circuits could be run with smaller conductors based strictly on their ampacities. This is not allowed under the NEC though.

If you were to amprobe a typical service it is probably drawing less than half its capacity.

On a somewhat related note, a POCO employee and I were talking about pole transformer sizing to see if the upgrade I was doing would impact the tranny. He said they run their transformers up to 140% capacity before they get replaced with a larger one.

[Mark A. Timpani, CMI]

So it is really none of our concern of the conductor size as HI's have know way of knowing, correct? We should just look to see the insulators condition or if the feeds are low or in trees, anything else?

[rromoser]

Just for kicks, open up the back of an electric stove and compare the wire sizes on the line side (#6-#8 awg)of the terminal block to the load size (usually #12). Different rules apply in different situations.

[Mark A. Timpani, CMI]

Thanks thats good to know.