DIY Home Improvement Forum banner

200 amp service with 100 amp service wire

2K views 3 replies 4 participants last post by  gregzoll 
#1 ·
I have a small cafe and had a 200 amp service installed. I also bought much of my electrical from the same coop electrical company. I had sent my wife to get supplys and they did give us a 200 amp interior box but sold us 100 amp wire to run from exterior pole service to interior 200 amp service box. I was not aware of this difference when i installed all of it. We opened and noticed that 208/240 volt appliances didn't seem to run very efficient.
Ex: our 48" flat top grill seemed to be struggling when in heavy use!

My question is how much of a difference 200 amp wire would make on the appliances and if any damage would occur?

Problem has since been corrected and appliances seem to be working good
 
#2 ·
That depends on the amount of "voltage drop", but motors can burn out. I don't know if any damage would have been done if the motors were running at a lower voltage and they are working ok now???

Anyway the voltage will be reduced with too small of a wire and a large load. This depends on many different factors.. wire size, voltage, length of the wire run, and the load at the end of the wire.

Here is a voltage drop calculator. Probably too late for this to be any help, you would have needed to measure the voltage or amperage draw - you would not necessarily be using 200 amps. And you would need to know the sizes of the wires and if they were copper or aluminum.

Anyway here is that calculator...
http://www.nooutage.com/vdrop.htm

Note a good example of this is to use a very long 50 ft. or 100 ft. small gauge extension cord to power a portable air compressor or other power hog. The motor will just hum.
 
#3 ·
Regardless of the ampacity supplied, the voltage is the same. The too small wire could overheat before the main breaker tripped to protect it from overheating.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top