practices in re-wiring kitchen for remodel

[venator260]

No prob. Funny, I always thought a lot of this new stuff (AFI, neutral in switchbox) was to help generate revenue for electrical contractors. But you don't seem very happy about it, so maybe not ...

I read the thread this time.

Another forum I go to with a few electricians on it tend to believe it's equipment manufacturers that are pushing for the new, more expensive stuff.

Not sure what to believe, but, as i said, I'm glad my locality doesn't require that sort of thing. I researched it when I had to do a panel swap in the spring, and I did it well enough for my panel to get it's very own $75 sticker.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I redid my kitchen a bit ago, and it currently has the following:

50A Stove circut (6-3G wire)
3 20A GFCI circuits serving counter top outlets
20A dishwasher circuit
20A microwave circuit
20A circuit serving the outlets in the attached dining room
15A fridge circuit
15A lighting circuit that also serves lights in other rooms

So, OP, assuming you've not already put up drywall, this is what I did, and the reasons for it.

Thanks, this is almost precisely what I'm doing, with the following caveats:

1. My third counter-top outlet circuit will not be added until I build an attached wet bar after the main kitchen is done. However, as neither microwave nor toaster oven will be on countertops, I'm ok with this.

2. My two dining room outlets will share a 20 amp circuit with the five outlets in the living room.

3. The 15A lighting circuit also controls the front-side outside floodlights and a fan/light on the porch. This is pretty much the original wiring, and that caused no problems even before CFL and LED bulbs became ubiquitous. The dining room lights are on a different circuit.

 

[Dobish]

i wanted my fridge on a separate circuit. I ran it that way, electrician rewired it. Now its connected to the rest of the kitchen, so when i shut off the power to the kitchen, it kills the fridge.

i would also add more outlets, you can never have too many in the kitchen.

 

[blades]

Arc Faults and GFI don't always do any good- refrigerator fan motor for coils froze up nothing tripped so the compressor kept merrily running after a time it was untouchable hot and melted the foam insulation of the unit - this while I was at work - so I come home and open door to a kitchen with a tinge of smoke and a bad electrical smell- about a month before the dehumidifier had pulled the same type of stunt so I headed for it first ( i had already replaced the fan assembly) not finding problem there is when I noticed yellow gunk on floor by refig. Just about at the burn temp judging by the charred tag next to the compressor. Can only guess what may have happened if I had worked late that day. Oh and the dehumidifier didn't trip anything either- addendum, a friend's dehumidifier did go up in flames fortunately the house didn't but the smoke and such damage was extensive. This all transpired in the mid 2000's and there was a recall on various name dehumidifiers right about the same time for just this problem.

 

[fbelec]

in the quest for a more safe house by the breaker companies a fan on a fridge or dehum bearing goes bad and stops the fan from turning unless the wires actually short together a arc fault or gfi won't trip under those conditions. if for some reason the winding start to come apart and arc to themselves the arc fault will trip. or if one of those wires goes to the case and grounds out but not enough current to short out the gfi will blow.

 

[fbelec]

around here if the kitchen is being done over all the old goes out by code and if you run a fridge on a 15 amp breaker it still has to be 12 gauge wire. strike one more makes no sense code for the nec

 

[venator260]

around here if the kitchen is being done over all the old goes out by code and if you run a fridge on a 15 amp breaker it still has to be 12 gauge wire. strike one more makes no sense code for the nec

That is odd based upon my understanding of wire sizes vs. current.

My fridge has 14 gauge wire going to it on a 15A breaker. 14 gauge is easier to run, which is why I went with that over 12 gauge. I did the lights on a 15A breaker for the same reason.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Lights are always run on 14-2 and 15 amp breakers. WIth todays LED lights you may only have 100 -150 watts going on the whole circuit.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

When I rewire I always use 12g. I can easily see that LEDs are turning, have turned lighting upside down, but annual consumption of electricity continues to increase. It's over 900kwh per month now!

 

[venator260]

Lights are always run on 14-2 and 15 amp breakers. WIth todays LED lights you may only have 100 -150 watts going on the whole circuit.

Yep. This is why my lighting circuit runs several rooms in my house, with more to be added as I renovate. I calculated the draw of all of the fixtures with the current mix of incandescent and LED (my grandparents hoarded incandescent before they passed), and I don't even come close to 15 amps. Perhaps 2-3 if I turned every light on on the circuit, which isn't likely. As my supply of incandescents decreases and I replace them with LEDs, that will drop even more.

 

[venator260]

When I rewire I always use 12g. I can easily see that LEDs are turning, have turned lighting upside down, but annual consumption of electricity continues to increase. It's over 900kwh per month now!

I suppose it doesn't hurt, and it would be easier to only have one kind of wire.

I find that the slightly lower cost of 14-2 vs 12-2 plus the fact that 14-2 is easier to work with makes me purchase different wire for each application. Of course, I only use it if it's going to a 15A breaker.

 

[RustyShackleford]

When I rewire I always use 12g.

Ouch, seems masochistic to me (I HATE working with it).

I can easily see that LEDs are turning...

Incandescents may be making a comeback. Seems like I heard some news snippet about researchers who are somehow insulating the filament, so it stays hot enough to give that sweet glow, without using much energy (less than CFL and LED, supposedly).

 

[fbelec]

Incandescents may be making a comeback. Seems like I heard some news snippet about researchers who are somehow insulating the filament, so it stays hot enough to give that sweet glow, without using much energy (less than CFL and LED, supposedly).

i hope so the color is better. the companies that make led's see to think that these blueish toned lights are what everybody needs. especially outside. try this yourself. get a led or cfl with the name daylight about 4 to 5000 k color turn it on outside in darkness. shield yourself from the light and see how far you can see the change out the daylight bulb for 2700 to 3000 k color and see how far you see then. the problem is most outdoor light fixtures more so higher power are blue. remember the 500 watt halogen or even the 300 watt halogen and how bright they lit the yard. now get the equal in led or cfl, they don't even come close. yes they are brighter when you look at them but are terrible for how the color gets used by our eyes.

 

[RustyShackleford]

i hope so the color is better. the companies that make led's ...

I imagine these new incandescents (if I didn't hallucinate them)have similar color to old-fashioned ones.

I'm with you on the LED color thing. The problem may be that (theoretically, at least) the bluer ("cooler", or higher color-temperature) LEDs are more efficient (lumens per watt). There's some pretty good-looking 120VAC LED bulbs now, but the12v ones still suck; I've gone so far as to buy good LED emitters (from Osram or Cree) and make my own landscape-lighting bulbs.

 

[Buzz Saw]

Different brands of 12-2 romex. work differently. I've found the Cerro at the box stores is awful compared to SouthWire Simpull Romex. The SouthWire stuff is a softer alloy and bends much easier, especially in tight spots and long pulls. Because of this I despise Cerro wire and will pay the extra few bucks at the supply house for SouthWire.

The last time I bought 1000' it was $15.more at the supply house than at Menard's. $15 is worth the faster easier wire.

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[hockeypuck]

Different brands of 12-2 romex. work differently. I've found the Cerro at the box stores is awful compared to SouthWire Simpull Romex. The SouthWire stuff is a softer alloy and bends much easier, especially in tight spots and long pulls. Because of this I despise Cerro wire and will pay the extra few bucks at the supply house for SouthWire.

The last time I bought 1000' it was $15.more at the supply house than at Menard's. $15 is worth the faster easier wire.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

100 percent agree. Simpull is far superior due to the slick coating. Less chance of wearing through an adjacent wire when pulling through an occupied hole


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[RustyShackleford]

Different brands of 12-2 romex. work differently. I've found the Cerro at the box stores is awful compared to SouthWire Simpull Romex. The SouthWire stuff is a softer alloy and bends much easier ...

Wow, I did not know there were such differences in the conductor softness. Anyone know if that Cerro vs. Southwire discrepancy also applies to 8-3 ?

 

[Buzz Saw]

Wow, I did not know there were such differences in the conductor softness. Anyone know if that Cerro vs. Southwire discrepancy also applies to 8-3 ?

I think it is and 10-3 & 6-3 as well. SouthWire Simpull for this DIYer.

I cringe at Cerro wire.

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[fbelec]

i could be wrong but the last time i bought simpull it is made by the company that gave our wire it's name rather than non metallic sheath cable and that is romex brand wire. i always buy it it also.

so far i have not had any trouble with the cree brand. the color is great too. with the color working the way it does with our eyes there is no way that they can compare lon the lumins scale. if you do the comparison you'll see what i mean.

hows the kitchen coming?

 

[RustyShackleford]

hows the kitchen coming?

Good, trying to get ready for drywall finishing, which is biggest issue before cabinets arrive. And biggest issue before drywall is electric of course, Always interesting to try to figure out what electricians did here 30 years ago !

 

[fbelec]

Always interesting to try to figure out what electricians did here 30 years ago !

sometimes it's best not to know

 

[RustyShackleford]

sometimes it's best not to know

I'm seeing a couple of questionable things, curious about your thoughts:

1. Groups of neutral and hot wires (up to 5) twisted together and taped, no wire nut at all. Sometimes one of the wires is longer and just keeps coming past the tape and to one of the switches. Edit: there's actually a crimp ring (like is normally used for grounds); I guess they saved maybe $2 when wiring the house, over using wire nuts, and made any later changes that much more difficult - I hate people like that.

2. Daisy-chained connection to switches. IOW, one of the hot wires coming from the aforementioned taped bundles goes to two switches, with just 3/4" or so of insulation stripped off in one spot, to be screwed to the first switch, and then the stripped end screwed to the second switch in the usual way.

I'm changing the makeup on this 4-gang box (of 4 switches) so I'm happy to change #1 (use wire nuts). I'd kinda rather keep #2 as it is though, as I don't need to change wiring to those two switches at all, so I'd rather just leave them be (plus, not add an additional hot wire pigtail to the 5 already there).

 

[fbelec]

as far as the group 1 anywhere you see tape remove the tape. as you want to use wirenuts that is the way it should be done. over a period of time the tape will deposit it's adhesive to the splice and begins to be the insulator in the joint as it becomes insulated it starts to heat up and the adhesive gets into the splice even more which snowballs into splice failure and circuit failure. i see tape all time and see half the circuit go down also.

as far as the hot wire to the switches thats fine as long as the wire between the switches is long enough to not interfere with the placement of switches for the finish plate install. i do that if there is a lot of wires in the box to save space. sometimes there is barely enough space in the box for a wirenut especially a red wirenut.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Ok, thanks. Yeah, I used some alcohol to clean the tape residue off the wires before I re-connected.

 

[Seasoned Oak]

Im Rewiring a house that was running on a single 20 amp breaker bugged into knob and tube wire for the last 35 years. Was a single guy living there that whole time so no problems. No insulation either and oil heat. After im done wiring ill blow in cellulose fibre.