wire/cable sizes

For building wire used in accordance with the 2005 National Electrical Code I recommend my Wire Size, OCPD, and voltage drop calculator that I have been working on for the last four weeks plus the six weeks work I did in 1996. It is at:

You can see in the technical documentation at the following link:

Recomended PDF files to answer to your doubt: Current ratings for ULC SA cables AWG Wires and AWG stranded conductors Conductor make AWG Wires and AWG stranded conductors

You can see the others for further information about cables and wires. Note: If you are in US please note that this manufacturer use mainly the IEC standard but they also have UL standard based cables!

Best regards

Reply: After looking at the Helukabel files we must be fortunate to have the National Electrical Code in the USA. How do European electricians make heads or tails out of this information? Do they have one standard like the NEC to use for sizing building wire?

In Europe we calculate the cable according with the characteristics of the cable, the proteccion device, the wire/cable length, the equipment to be supplied, the wire/cable installation conditions, etc..................as you know certainly according with standard rules...

The contries that make part of the European Union, 25 contries, have defined standards similar to NEC principles.

CENELEC (French: Comit=E9 Europ=E9en de Normalisation Electrotechnique) is the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization.

CENELEC is responsible for European Standardization in the area of electrical engineering. Together with ETSI (telecommunication) and CEN (other technical areas) CENELEC form the European system for technical standardization.

CENELEC was founded in 1973. Before that two organizations were responsible for electrotechnical standardization: CENELCOM and CENEL. CENELEC is a non-profit organization under Belgian law, based in Brussels. The members are the national electrotechnical standardization bodies of most European countries.

The current members of CENELEC are: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Albania, Bosnia/Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Turkey and Ukraine are currently 'affiliate members' with a view to becoming full members.

Although CENELEC works closely with the European Union, it is not an EU institution.

Each country can have specific standards based in CENELEC standards, that prevails.

Europe is very organized and have all well defined as you imaginate.

FYI: Lightning: 1.5mm2 (aprox 14 AWG) ;-)