Why Balance Electrical Loads in the Home?

In this video, I describe using circuit diagrams why we want to balance electrical loads in the home, what this means, and how it allows us to save money when installing electrical wiring.

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[jimcervantes]

Only the feeders to your breaker panel would see a difference in power dissipation sensitive to phase balance. The branch circuits leaving the panel have the same current regardless of balance and this is where your money is spent on copper. Besides, the feeders are sized by the utility based on the overall service amperage which is available on both phases, so the feeders need to handle a completely unbalanced load and therefore cannot be reduced in size by assuming a balanced load. I'm not sure I understand your argument.

[theGraphicAutist]

This might be a dumb question, but is anything different whether the load is resistive or inductive? And also if there is an imbalance, is it a power factor thing or something else. I'm obviously no EE...

[kevinanderson]

How does this affect cost of electricity?

[RadioRich]

Doesnt make sense. Houses are wired to be monkey proof. U can save money on wire gauge but when someone else owns that house he gets himself in trouble not knowing to balance his loads. Things must be over rated for safety anyway.

[bubbavox]

Is this an argument for Multiwire Branch Circuits? Because that is the only code-compliant way I'm seeing to use less wire -- not smaller wire, just 1 less neutral wire per pair of branches. This has other theoretical advantages as well (and disadvantages or at the least, caveats). But if you're talking about balancing a load between legs across the whole system, I don't see how you could use smaller wire and still be within code, or as someone else put it, "be monkeyproof". Not that I'm an electrical professional or anything.