Electrical Load
Everything drawing power in your home at a given moment, and by extension the calculated demand your service and panel must be sized to handle.
Each appliance is a load, and the National Electrical Code provides a standard method (the load calculation) to add them up realistically: square footage for lights and general outlets, nameplate ratings for fixed appliances, demand factors that account for the fact that not everything runs at once. The result, in amps, is compared against your service size to answer the modern question: is there room for the EV charger, the heat pump, the hot tub?
Load is also a live concept: a circuit that trips when the microwave and toaster run together is simply overloaded, and the answer is to split the loads across circuits, not to install a bigger breaker on the same thin wire.
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- Volt : The unit of electrical pressure pushing current through a circuit.
- Kilowatt-Hour (kWh) : The unit your utility bills you for: one kilowatt of power used for one hour.
- 120V vs 240V : US homes receive two 120-volt legs from the utility.
- Voltage Drop : The loss of voltage along a wire run, caused by the resistance of the wire itself.