Amps, Volts, and Watts understanding your power bill

Getgrowingson

Well-Known Member
Depends entirely on the gauge of the wire. You can google to find charts that will give you the resistance per foot for any gauge wire. That info allows you to calculate wire losses for a given load current.

For instance, if you have 14 gauge wire(minimum build standard for household 120VAC circuits), its resistance is about .0025 ohms per foot. At a typical max load of 15 amps, it works out to .56W per foot of wire. So on a standard household (120VAC) 15A circuit if the load is 1800W, 40 feet from the breaker panel, the wire losses will be a little over 21W, about 1.1% of the load wattage. Over the same wires, if 240V supply is used, the current will be cut in half and the wire loss will be reduced to .14W per foot. At 40 ft, the wire loss becomes 5.68W or 0.3% of the 1800W load.

That's where the difference comes from - wire losses. But those losses are generally small anyway (unless the electrician did a shoddy job and undersized the wiring), and the difference is pretty negligible until you get into very long wire runs.
Well said
Magic number for total losses in a branch circuit is 3% it gets more complicated than that but a general rule to go by is 3%
 

VegasWinner

Well-Known Member
In Grammar School We Called This A Dog Pile, Where All The Bullies Came Out To Play With One Person And Attempt To Suffocate Them, To Death By Accident on The Play Ground!
 

CannaBruh

Well-Known Member
In Grammar School We Called This A Dog Pile, Where All The Bullies Came Out To Play With One Person And Attempt To Suffocate Them, To Death By Accident on The Play Ground!
You keep starting new threads continuing with your incorrect "thoughts" without defending one successfully and intending it as advice to others to their detriment. Is this what you wanted to have said?

You gonna clean up that "power meters only count the amps" bullshit some more?

I love how I have to reply to your crap in like 5 different threads, all on different subjects, and mostly you're all over the place in each of them.

Read one book on electronics.
 

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
You keep starting new threads continuing with your incorrect "thoughts" without defending one successfully and intending it as advice to others to their detriment. Is this what you wanted to have said?

You gonna clean up that "power meters only count the amps" bullshit some more?

I love how I have to reply to your crap in like 5 different threads, all on different subjects, and mostly you're all over the place in each of them.

Read one book on electronics.
I think that's the problem - he did read one book. But no one was around to explain the concepts to him.
 

nfhiggs

Well-Known Member
In Grammar School We Called This A Dog Pile, Where All The Bullies Came Out To Play With One Person And Attempt To Suffocate Them, To Death By Accident on The Play Ground!
No one is bullying you. Grow up. Learn to interact and discuss things in an adult way and ACCEPT CORRECTION of your incorrect ideas. No one had a problem in your DIY board thread until you made ridiculous claims of "using half the energy to make the same amount of power"
 
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