to many amps

[Seth Hegert]

200 amp panel with 760 total amps in breakers. Seimens panel with worn label. how many amps is to much for a 200amp/240v panel.

[Bruce A. King]

No limit but that (760)does not sound right.

Did you add up all double pole 240V breaker using the printed amps on each half of the breaker? ie count up 60 for a 30 amp 240V breaker?

List SF of house and equipment present.

[Speedy Petey]

Adding up the breakers is ABSOLUTELY meaningless.

It is not uncommon to have 600-800 amps worth of breakers in a 200 amp panel.
This means they ran all 20A circuits, or a mix and several larger. Again, this means nothing.

[David P. Valley]

Seth,

How long have you adding the sum of breakers in a SE?

As Speedy states....it's meaningless.

[Seth Hegert]

I do not usually add them up. this house is a 2/2 with a garage. It just seemed to high to me for this particular house. Thanks for the posts and back up.
seth

[Frank P. Newman]

Assuming none of the breakers (main or branch) have been tripping regularly, the sum of the breaker ratings is of no consequence. Usually it is just the sign of a very conservative installation. As an extreme example, for all we know each of those 20 amp breakers is serving only one duplex outlet. That is approximately the case in some areas of my house.

[George P. Wells]

Originally Posted by shegert

200 amp panel with 760 total amps in breakers. Seimens panel with worn label. how many amps is to much for a 200amp/240v panel.

Seth,

That's not unusual. There is a difference between connected load and demand load. The demand load takes many factors into consideration. For example, if you have both a heating load and a cooling load, they are are not both included in the demand at the same time. They are called "non-coincident" loads because you would not typically run both at the same time.

We have a Residential Electrical Service Size Calculator that is in the Free Stuff section of our website. If you subscribe to the free Tips for Success newsletter, you will automatically get access to the Free Stuff section.

The calculator is in the form of a Excel file. You do not need to have any knowledge of electrical systems or electrical codes to use it. I created the calculator mainly for home inspectors and others who are interested in knowing how to size a residential electrical service.

The calculator will tell you the demand load, the closest standard service size, conductor sizes for Cu and Al, and conduit size. The NEC does not use the same table for service conductor ampere ratings as for feeder and branch circuit conductors.

There are also some other electrical teaching calculators in the Free Stuff section.