Are balanced loads (on a double pole breaker) always balanced?

[whitenack]

Hey all, first post.

I just got my Emporia Vue 2 yesterday and have it set up on a temporary basis to see how it works and where I want to put my sensors on a permanent basis.  I am mostly testing out what double-pole breakers are balanced vs unbalanced.  After a day of use, I am getting a pretty good feel for it.  Are balanced loads always balanced?

For example…my mini-split heat pumps are currently showing a balanced load.  They are currently in heating mode…is there a chance that they could switch to an unbalanced mode when they start cooling (or operating in fan-only mode)?

[7_2kW_in_Mesa_AZ]

No, loads are not necessarily perfectly balanced.

As an example, on my electric dryer both legs are used by the heating element, but only one leg is used by the motor. The result is that one leg has a higher load than the other.

 

 

[JonB]

If the cable running out of the panel to the heat pump does not have a neutral (just 3 wires, hot, hot, gnd,) then, yes the loads should always be balanced (unless there’s a fault.)  If it’s got a 4th wire connecting to the neutral bus bar, then it’s possible that it wouldn’t always be balanced, but not sure if there would be any case a heat pump would be balanced when heating and not when cooling.

[Author]

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