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This is a very interesting thread. Thanks to the helpers for your valuable information, and thanks to the askers for covering some of my questions already. My Situation: I recently purchased a 76 year old house that has seen multiple upgrades, expansions, and remodels over the years. It has 200A service entering on the southeast corner, and a modern breaker box in the cellar on the northeast corner. The original wiring is K&T, which still exists in the oldest rooms, and the new construction is done (poorly) with Romex cables. Most 3 prong outlets are not actually grounded, but everything that should have GFCI does. I do not know yet if the outlets are not correctly wired, or if a grounding rod has disintegrated. I understand that I can simply abandon the K&T in the walls and run new Romex through the house, and this is exactly what I intend to do. I fear for my electronics being on ungrounded circuits, and I need some receptacles in places where I have none. I am very comfortable working with electricity and electrical wiring, I was an electronic technician for about 5 years, and I've worked with some very powerful equipment. I am not, however, knowledgeable about the codes and rules of home power distribution. I also intend to sell this house in a few years, and I'm trying to do as much labor as I can to improve the resale value. Anything that I have to hire out is a hit to my end return, and I don't want to gently caress up my bottom line any more than is necessary. My Questions: Is there any reason why I wouldn't want to break each room down into it's own branch circuit? For example, I have 3 ceiling fans on the second floor that are on one circuit; that is all there is on that circuit. I feel like each fan should be part of the room it resides in, not part of some arbitrary ceiling fan only group. Is that silly of me, or is there some reason to keep it the way it is if I'm going to rewire the entire house? I want to upgrade my detached garage from a 15A branch to 2x 20A. Am I going to have to dig up the old conduit and bury a second one for the additional circuit? Or can I just pull 2 cables through the existing conduit? My garbage disposal and dishwasher are connected to a receptacle under the sink, which does seem to be on a GFCI circuit. It seems strange to me that they're not hard wired, especially the disposal. Is there any logical reason for this, or any reason I should not hard wire it the way I think it should be done? I'm planning on eventually installing an electric on-demand water heater for the master bath (to supplement the existing 40 gallon tank for the whole house), and possibly a heated tile floor. Is there anything out of the ordinary I should do now while I'm working on the rest, to prepare for this thing that may or may not happen next year? This summer my uncle (who is professional HVAC) is going to replace the furnace and A/C with newer, more efficient, models. The furnace is currently natural gas, but I intend to go electric just to eliminate the ONLY gas appliance in the entire house ($350 a month to heat this bitch in the winter!!). Should I upgrade to 300A or 400A service just to keep some headroom, or should I just squeeze right under the limits and leave the upgrades to the next guy? What does that cost anyway? I'm not afraid of burning my house down, but I'm afraid of having some inspector come through saying a bunch of my poo poo is wrong and a potential buyer walking away. I think I've got the basic ideas: all wire junctions must be in a box, if a breaker is 20A then every wire, switch, and outlet on that branch needs to be rated 20A also, GFCI if you're X feet from water, outdoors, or in a garage, AFCI in all bedrooms, etc. What are the easiest mistakes to make that will gently caress me over?
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Apr 14, 2009 22:41
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kid sinister posted:As for your one circuit per room idea, you're assuming that every room will require one whole circuit. There's rooms like bathrooms and closets whose power needs aren't high enough to require their own distinct circuit. It just isn't cost effective to put rooms like these on separate circuits, running a longer length of romex back to the breaker box instead of to the adjacent room. You'd probably run out of space for breakers in your box before you could pull this off. I wasn't so much thinking of putting closets on individual circuits like that as just putting things together in more logical (to a non-electrician) pattern. A bedroom and it's closet on a single circuit; instead of a bedroom and one outlet in the next room (because they share a wall), minus the ceiling fan (because all upstairs room fans are together on a separate one) just because that's was the absolute most efficient use of wire by a matter of 3 feet. My breaker box can more than handle that as far as space goes. Right now poo poo's totally arbitrary, a mix of the old and the new. I have a breaker that controls just one receptacle in the cellar, with nothing plugged into that. It's insane. kid sinister posted:As for your conduit question, what size is it? Does it have enough space to run 2 lengths of 12/2? There is actually code on this. In how good of shape is it? Does it leak? It looks like it's 1", but I haven't measured. I'm pretty sure I can fit two cables in there, but I didn't know if there was some code for derating the conductors or insulation, etc. It's in great shape that I can see, and does not leak as far as I know. I'll read up on that. kid sinister posted:Just try to keep in mind where you'd run pipes and cabling for that on-demand heater and floor, so you won't in the future have to plan around the work you're doing now. You might want to keep a breaker or two open in your box for it. Check. kid sinister posted:There's no code that disposals need to be hardwired. In fact, it's actually easier because when a disposal does clog, it's easier to then remove from the sink to take it apart and clear the clog. Still, some inspectors seem to like hardwired disposals for some reason. Double check. kid sinister posted:Here's the best thing you can do to pass inspection and NOT burn down your house: do your work to code! Unfortunately for the average person, the NEC codebook reads like a law book. That's why people need to train to do this for a living. I would consider myself ahead of the curve here, considering my past professional experience, but it's still a pretty tall order to make sure I get everything just perfect. I'm mostly just worried about the most obvious oversights and gotchas that an inspector will zero in on and gently caress me. Thanks for the reply!
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Apr 15, 2009 03:28
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grover posted:I'd actually recommend the International Residential Code (IRC) instead. It includes all portions of NEC that's relavant to residential construction and leaves out all the N/A bits that confuse people. It also include all the plumbing, HVAC, etc, that a DIY homeowner needs to know. Thanks, that sounds very helpful! grover posted:There's nothing wrong with grouping a bunch of lights together. You can put them on individual circuits if you'd like, but there's really no reason to, and you'll just waste money in extra breakers and wires and probably need an extra panel at some point. So long as the circuit is sized to support everything on it, you're OK. I think you misunderstood me on that one. I want the lights to be part of the room they're in (with everything else in the room), rather than 3 lights together with just each other and nothing else. The added expense for those few feet will be negligible. grover posted:Hot water on demand draws a LOT of current- an obscene amount, really. A small one may not be too bad, but a large one is probably just not practical. Just run your tap for 10 seconds like the rest of us This little luxury wouldn't be about how fast the water gets hot for a shower, but to have an unending supply of hot water for 4 people to have showers without being rushed. Like you said they pull a lot of current, but less energy overall than doing a larger tank water heater, or two in series configuration. It also wouldn't be a large model, it only needs to feed the shower, not the whole house. grover posted:As far as easy mistakes... make sure the right size cable for the circuit (#12 for 20A), make sure to leave 6" of wire in each outlet, and plan ahead- think everything through before you do it! If you plan out every iota of your upcoming upgrades, you'll not be caught by surprise and will have an easier and cheaper time of it. For instance, find out what your water heater demand is, what your new HVAC equipment requires, and do the NEC calculations for your panel to make sure 200A is enough. If not, go from there. I'm all about planning. I've sized up everything I intend to do, and I think my 200A service will be just enough. I'm just undecided on if I like the idea of just enough, or if I want to have room for more if some other factor changes. For me personally, I'd want the room, but I don't think a potential buyer is going to think about a maxed out panel vs their future remodeling plans. What does it cost to go all out and hit 400A? Thanks for you help!
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Apr 15, 2009 03:39
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GreenTrench posted:Most definitely they are different. I think I misread what was going on. I just want to augment the capabilities of my existing water heater, and only for the shower in the master bath. Given how well my water heater works, which is already electric and has a 2" added insulation blanket, I can go with one of the smaller 30-50A@120V on-demand types just to boost the temperature after the tank is depleted.
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Apr 15, 2009 04:04
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Ok, first things first: conduit underground. It's against code to put romex in conduit underground. Romex cannot be used in wet locations, and that's what underground counts as (even in conduit). So you're going to be using UF (underground feeder) wire anyway, which is rated for direct burial. Awesome. I'm not even sure why I didn't think about more conductors in a single cable, I don't really need multiple grounds. I had no idea about UF wire, I'll have to check now and see if that's what I have there now (I suspect it is, the garage looks professionally done). babyeatingpsychopath posted:Next: I had a 60A 240V tankless water heater for the whole house (1200sqft) and it worked fabulously. It would throttle power, take water as hot as 88F, and run all day. It was truly wonderful. If I had to do it on a much larger house, I'd go one of two ways: if there were hot-water floor heat, I'd use a tank heater and a recirculating pump; if not, then a 30A 240V on-demand heater mounted under each sink and a 40A 240V on-demand in the shower(s). That's a lot of wiring, but it's small and reasonably cheap, and you only have half as many water lines. My house is almost 1900sqft, but still only 2 full bath and kitchen to worry about, and those are relatively close to the existing water heater (in terms of pipe feet. I don't have water heated floors, so it sounds like I could go with a good sized tankless for the whole house. Would you mind PMing me details on your tankless? babyeatingpsychopath posted:Upgrading services: ask your power company. Services only come in in 200A, and getting a new one is pretty pricey. It is something you can do, since any half-trained monkey can do residential electric, but it is way more complicated and the service entrance, meter bases, panels, and grounding should probably be done professionally. Once the panels are up, the rest you can do. Sounds like I'll want to stick to my 200A then, if possible, thanks. babyeatingpsychopath posted:Finally, circuiting. When I rewired my house, I read the code book. It said: bathrooms on their own dedicated GFI circuit, two general kitchen appliance circuits with nothing else (no lights, etc) and bedrooms on AFCIs. So that's what I did. I ran two cirucits to the plugs in the kitchen, one circuit to the bathroom, then one circuit to each room in the house. That way, it was easy to turn off "master bedroom" or "living room." Until a room gets really big (10 outlets plus a bunch of lights) a single 20A should do you fine. If you've got space in the panel go for it. That's exactly what my thinking was. I want to be able to just turn off an entire room, like my dining room or something, with one breaker. Not turn off most of it, part of the living room too, only to find that the outlet I want to work with is actually on another circuit because it's on a shared wall. That kind of arbitrary poo poo just confuses and angers me. babyeatingpsychopath posted:Fridges, disposals, and microwaves are commonly getting dedicated circuits, as are A/C units. Ovens must have a dedicated circuit. That, with the two kitchens, the bathrooms, and the bedrooms on AFCIs, adds up to a lot of circuits really quickly; more quickly with one circuit (two-pole!) per dedicated on-demand water heater. I didn't know about the number needed for kitchens, but I still don't think that puts me over the limit. My breaker box is huge for some reason, seems way bigger than what was needed for the house. I'm not complaining though, as it gives me room to expand. Thanks for your help!
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Apr 15, 2009 15:18
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jackyl posted:If you have particularly old / crumbly drywall, you can use a could of 1/4" or 1/2" inch strips of plywood cut about 8 inches long and maybe an inch wide. Put them horizontally at the top and bottom of your cutout and secure them to the drywall with drywall screws. This will allow the clamps to go against that plywood instead of the drywall - it will require some extremely easy mudding and sanding to cover the screws of course. I've found that a couple coats of paint on the cut edge of the drywall is enough to solidify it for this kind of work.
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Apr 29, 2009 22:14
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