wrote in message
...
On Fri, 29 May 2009 18:16:00 -0400, "Eisboch"
wrote:

Assume your house is wired with a 200 ampere service (which is pretty
standard for the average sized home). You have two "hot" legs, a neutral
and ground. The size of each hot leg is sized to handle 200 amperes.
That's 200 amps each, or a total of 400 amps. Yet, the white "neutral"
lead is the same size as the hot leads .... rated for 200 amps.

Why?

Very few licensed electricians will give the correct answer.

The two ungrounded conductors are opposite ends of a center tapped
transformer and tend to cancel so the neutral only carries the
unbalanced load, max 200 (if one side was totally unloaded)

How did I do ... for a guy with no union card?



Not bad. The two hots are 180 degrees out of phase, so the neutral only
carries the difference between the two. If both hots are drawing exactly
50 amps, the current flowing through the neutral is zero.

Eisboch