Kitchen Circuits And Receptacles

I completed my whole house rewire last Fall (took 2 years and severely tested my wife's patience). I read 5 wiring books in the early stages but read Rex Cauldwell's Wiring a House with his above code suggestions near the end of the project and now im obsessing about some of the stuff I didnt do. What do you guys think of some of the suggestions, specifically,



1. Driving 8 ground rods and the wire must be continuous (I drove 4 but the #6 copper wire from the panel to rod 1 is 1 wire and the #6 wire from rod 1 through rod 4 is another wire but both are properly clampled to rod 1 with an acord clamp). Funny, even with 4 rods there is almost no current through the rods versus 2-3 amps through the traditional cold water pipe ground



2. 1 circuit for each duplex receptacle in bathrooms. Since I have a quad in each of the batchrooms, that would be 4 circuits instead of 1 (code allows an unlimited number of bathroom receptacles on one circuit which does seem odd)



3. Nothing shared with kitchen counter receptacles (ie kitchen wall and dining room on their own)



4. Dedicated circuits for everything - I added dedicted circuit for fridge, microwave and dishwasher/disposer, but did not separate the dishwasher disposer onto 2 circuits. There used to be what I called "Circuit X" which did kitchen counter, microwave, dishwasher, disposer, fridge, 2 kitchen counter outlets, dining room and 1 outside outlet. Wife frequently blew that one. Circuit X was divided into at least 5 circuits during the rewire



5. No switch loops - did 5 of these to save on carpentry/avoid certain box fill problems. Now 2011 code says no switch loops without a neutral. Oops?



Just wondering what you guys think.
      

I want to run a new 12/3 to wire a room added on the back of the house. One circuit will be 6 wall outlets. The other will be a ceiling fan and 4 recessed cans. Can I add 2 outdoor lights-using standard outdoor bulbs-to the same circuit as the ceiling lights? Do I use the wall switch(box properly sized) as the junction for the outlet wiring and feed to wall switch for outdoor lights?
      

Hi all, this is my first post, so...my kitchen was just renovated and the electrical outlets are on the walls and I wanted them in plugmold under the cabinet. Why didn't it happen?  Long story, but I'm doing it myself now.  The electrical receptacles are on 2 separate circuits with a gfci receptacle on each and neither circuit has a receptacle outside the kitchen where I can put the gfci's, so I'm putting gfci breakers in the panel instead. I've run into a different problem on each circuit that'd like some advice on.



Circuit 1: this is a 20 amp circuit.  I have to plug this circuit's neutral wire into the gfci breaker, but I couldn't see which neutral wire matched the hot wire (buried in mess of wires) and I don't have a continuity tester so I just pulled one neutral at a time (tedious) until the circuit failed, but it never failed. So I did this again for every neutral...same result. This circuit shares a few boxes with other circuits so I'm wondering if the neutrals on different circuits are tied together somewhere, and if so I'm pretty sure, but not completely, that that's not going to work with the gfci breaker.  So I didn't install that gfci breaker since I'm not confident it would actually gfci (yep i verbified gfci).  What do you think?



Circuit 2:  this is a 20 amp circuit.  This circuit currently has the refrigerator, gas stove and range hood, and then a gfci in front of 3 electrical receptacles, which already sounds bad since I thought the kitchen receptacles required 2 dedicated circuits. I replaced that breaker with no problem, but it tripped after a few minutes and continued to trip every few minutes. I haven't changed anything else on that circuit yet and it's never tripped before, but now it is, so I put the old breaker back for now. The current gfci receptacle is only protecting the 3 outlets since the appliances are ahead of it. I know you wouldn't normally want the appliances gfci protected, so do you think the refrigerator motor may be a problem?  Do I need the appliances on a separate circuit?  What would you suggest I do?



Thanks, and if you're wondering "why all the effort?", it's partly because I'm meddlesome, partly because I'm bored, and partly because the backsplash tile is to be on showcase, not the electrical receptacles.
      

I have 3 bedrooms on 15 amp circuits, 14 gauge wire. Original wiring is one bedroom is on one circuit and the other 2 bedrooms on another circuit. The wall switches in each switched the top half of an outlet in each room. I converted the wire at the wall switch to a 110V feed from the outlet and ran 14/3 from the switch to the ceiling for a ceiling fan. I replaced the outlets since the jumper was cut to isolate the 2 plug ins for switching. Is this whole scenario code compliant?
      

Going through a crazy heat wave here in SoCal, and one of my tenants called to tell me that the electricity isn't on in some of his rooms. He turned on his portable AC unit that he has been using all summer and something may have happened.



Downstairs:The dining room light switch, downstairs light switch do not work. All outlets around them do work though, which is odd cause I would have thought they'd be on the same circuit.



Upstairs: The side bathroom light switch does not work, but outlets all work. In the master bedroom (where the AC unit is located), the master bathroom light switch does not work, nor does the master bedroom light switch. All of the outlets do not work either. I used my outlet tester and it gave me the hot/ground reversed lights. I think this means that the white/black wires are reversed on the outlets (has not changed recently).



I went over, checked all of the breakers. Switched them to off, then back on, did not fix the issue. All breakers stay in the on position without tripping, so no shorts?



Checked all GFCI's, hit test, then reset, did not solve the problem.



We unplugged everything from all outlets, and retried, but it didn't work.



I checked continuity between the main power lines, and the output of the circuit breakers, and all were fine. I did NOT check the voltages though, and will do so in the morning when I stop by again.



Is there anything else I should check?
      

I am doing a bathroom remodel and have a 20 AMP circuit with only a single outlet and 12/2 wire.   I have two other outlets that are already wired with 14/2 wire.  I would like to put the outlets on the same circuit and wondering if it is okay to mix the 14/2 and 12/2 wires on the same circuit IF I swap out the breaker to a 15 AMP.  I've calculated the load and the 15 AMP would be sufficient.



I know I could not mix in the 14/2 on teh 20 AMP circuit but I believe it is okay to mix them on the 15AMP.
      

Hi All -



I'm looking to add some outlets in the garage (currently have only one) for my workshop. At most, I'll be using a 13 amp table saw and 11 amp shop vac simultaneously.



I had an electrician come out for an estimate and while it was a fair price, I want to do this myself to build some confidence.



A few questions: he said they would probably add 2 15 amp circuits to handle the load. Is that necessary? Or can I add say one 30 amp circuit?



2nd: my garage is drywalled (and insulated). It will be much easier to have the outlets (and wire) on the exterior of the wall. What would be the best materials for this? My breaker is located in the garage and the outlets would run directly out from the side as seen in my poor illustration.



Since it is set into the wall, I'll have to run the wire from the breaker into the back of the first box. Is that as simple as it sounds, or is there something that I am missing?



Any help is appreciated.



Cameron
      

I posted this in the woodworking forum and I got a ton of rants so please spare me that please. I'm not an idiot and I intend on completely turning off all power before attempting anything.



So I've been researching adding a couple of electrical outlets to my garage (where the panel is). I want to run a new 120v outlet for the tablesaw (older craftsman 113 series) so that it is on it's own circuit and a 240v outlet for a grizzly G1029z2 DC on it's own circuit as well.



What amp 120 circuit should I add for my tablesaw? Will a standard 15a breaker be fine?



What amp 240 circuit should I add for my DC? The motor plate states 12 amps and the manual says the electrical is a minimum circuit size of 20. Should I just install a 20amp circuit or go with larger circuit?



Need recommendations on the gauge of wire to use on each circuit.
      

I have a mwbc where one is running my kitchen outlets, and the other is running a dedicated circuit for the disposal. the breakers are adjacent in the panel, so they are on opposite phase and share a common neutral and ground. I was updating the outlets and so turned off only one of the breakers. when I tested the line to make sure it was off, my voltmeter still read about 10 volts. Is this normal? there were no appliances connected to either circuit.
      

I am thinking of purchasing a WineKoolr used but after looking at the manual online it states that it must be plugged into a "Dedicated separately fused, grounded, 15 amp 100-120v line." The price I can get this at is awesome, but I live in apartment and am not sure, but think I only have 1 dedicated line at all, for the fridge. The previous owners said they just had it plugged into a normal outlet fine, but I want to know if it is a serious issue to do this? I really want a nice cooler for my beer cellar since I have no actual basement, so I am really hoping I can make this work in my home. Thanks for any help!





*Someone asked me on another forum what breakers I have for where I want to install it, and its in my second bedroom.  The breaker for those outlets is a 15A.  They also said that it probably says that in the manual to cover themselves legally but I should likely be just fine.





**

Well I turned off the breakers until I found which was for the outlets in the spare room.  As far as I can tell, the only things on this circuit are the spare bedroom outlets (not the lights), and 1 outlet in the hallway.  Nothing is plugged into any of these and its a 20A circuit.