Electrical load calculations

[Les Desser]

Can anyone point me to a handy table of electrical loads I can use for planning a house rewiring job.

In particular, how much do I need to allow for the control gear in a modern fluorescent light fitting?

[Part timer]

Less power than an old magnetic ballast with glowstart.

(see page 7 for what the EEI classes mean) class A3: electronic ballasts class A2: electronic ballasts with reduced losses class A1: dimmable electronic ballasts

Page 12 tells me that an A2 class HF ballast uses 55W on a tube rated

58W. Philips or whoever made your ballast(s) have very good PDF files telling you what (industrial) quantities of the fittings can be connected to one circuit breaker.

[Owain]

100W per point or actual load if greater.

Owain

[Tabby]

Nothing

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If this is your house and of a normal size which you intend living in, just install the usual circuits. Like as regards lighting, one for each floor, with an additional one for the hall and stairs. I always use 1.5mm cable for the feeds which allows uprating of the normal 6 amp MCB later if needed. The costs of cable etc are tiny compared to the work involved, so it makes no sense to penny pinch.

None, I'd say.

[Les Desser]

In article , Part timer Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:22:27 writes

Thank you very much. That is spot on.

Thanks also to the others who said the same thing - that there is no need to add an allowance for the modern ballasts.

I will use 40/60/70 W for 4/5/6 foot tubes as an estimate.

[Michael Chare]

If you make provision for an electric oven and hob it would be wise to err on the cautious side as some models can draw quite a bit of power.

I have just stayed in a holiday cottage where the main switch for the cooker was at the back of a cupboard. I did wonder if this contravened any regulations. What was confusing was that there was another main switch which just operated the bob.

[cynic]

The old rule of thumb was to multiply the rated wattage of the individual flourescent batten by 1.8 - this is probably generous but its workable

[Les Desser]

In article , cynic Thu, 2 Sep 2010 12:56:49 writes

I do remember that - I used to just double it.

However, it does seem that modern electronic gear does not need any up-rating