[Mystriss]

Wouldn't it be a pigtail to the light switch? It'd have to be pretty short to fit in the box with all the switch wiring & uhm "service line?" to the next room's circuits. I'll study up on precisely what a pig tail is soon...

Books in cart, I'm excited to get hands on them, Thank you 🥰

 

[Mystriss]

I dont trust stabs, prefer nuts.

 

[Mystriss]

Be sure to check your codes prior.
Some rooms like a bathroom where you are feeding from the panel to the bathroom the recptacle/s and lights you can not extend that circuit to another room or bathroom. If you were just feeding the receptalce in that bathroom then it can be extended to another bathroom.
This is why it is a god idea to get a book on codes. Also, besides the NEC codes you have to be aware of codes for AHJs which will tell you further other codes that are needed to follow.

I'd just learned about the bathroom outlet/light/vent stuff before I posted I'm just going to do a dedicated GFCI for lights & outlets in bathrooms, I figure with hairdryers, curlers, towel warmers, etc. it's better that way, maybe I'll add one of the two powder rooms on to any en suites I put in... I haven't finished designing the pretend house yet hehhe

I just started this little side quest this morning, long story short, lost a hard drive like 6-8 months ago and my beloved architectural design software wouldn't register, I finally had a chance to call them (calling the east coast from Alaska is a total PITA) and we got my software patched up and I was itching to play with it again. I don't have any architectural projects to work on so I decided to make a mansion. That lead to a side quest related to electrical service and here I am a bit further down the rabbit hole

Interesting AHJ thing, I'd never heard of it before - learn something new every day. Unsurprisingly, given that we barely even have building inspections around these parts, it looks like no AHJ codes apply to R3 or R4, just hotels & old folks homes. I think only Anchorage, Alaska has any kind of building code/permitting process. I'm in Anchorage "on paper" but in reality we're on the other side of a mountain range, my city was annexed by Anchorage because they wanted our property taxes You can schedule to get permits, but no code inspector will come out here, you have to pay extra for a private "code inspector" if you want to make sure your builders are doing it right lol

 

[Mystriss]

Please reference the schematics. Show me which one you are looking at and I can better explain what to do.

I think it's the first one, though you lost me on the separate "junction box" My section detailer doesn't allow image imports so it took me a couple hours, but I decided to draw out exactly what I'm thinking about doing in the pretend house.

First image is the house layout, breaker box is in the Mud Room (label J). I'm specifically talking about Fuse run #35 controlling Mud Room, Laundry, & Pantry lights.

Here's the wiring diagram, specifically the right side box with source power from the fuse (forgot to label the first/origin 3-way switch for the Mud Room, center bottom) The whole thing is a little messy, but I've ran out of time today to try to clean it up any better lol

 

[Mystriss]

You don't need, or want, lights on a GFCI. You can have a dedicated circuit for just one bath without putting the lights on a GFCI. Just feed the light switch off of the line side of the GFCI receptacle, or bring power to the switch first.

Ah yeah, that makes sense, thank you

 

[Mystriss]

I also stressed to home owners for renos or a new build that all receptacles are pigtailed. This way if there is a fault with a receptacle it does not knock out power downline from that receptacle. It costs a bit more in labor and materials but saves headaches in the future trying to troubleshoot receptacles. Landlords usually liked this so if a tenant said they had a bad receptacle at least that one bad receptacle did not knock out power to several of them downline and it gave the landlord time to respond.

Splitting up your circuits will add more circuit spaces and will add to the AFCI required breakers cost overall but "convenience" is the name of the game.

Can you explain the pigtail for receptacles? I think I'm just used to seeing 1980s wiring from my house, a bunch of outlets are just daisy chained down the wall. When you say to pigtail them do you mean basically run two 12/2's down the wall?

Though to be fair, I've actually only tripped a breaker one time in this house for all it's quirky wiring and such. I believe it was running both my instapot and a blender on the same outlet or something like that.

 

[Mystriss]

I realized this morning I was stuck on switch circuits, which is why I thought a second romex was needed to pig tail outlets Basically wire each outlet on its own vs daisy chain? 3 extra nuts so you'd be wanting them extra deep boxes heh

I'm sad that there is so much electrical stuff I won't learn because it's not in books and I'm not going to be an electrician or anything. I'm waiting for brain downloads, then I could just be like oh, I want to learn X today, and boom download all the knowledge and tricks actual electricians have locked up in their brains. My bio-father was an electrician with the army, he did all the wiring in ... uhm... wow, brain fart. It was Valdez or Whittier... I think it was Whittier. But he did all the electrical work down there before he left mom and I up here. (Mom refused to go back to the farm town, Galesburg North Dakota, she was one of those career feminist types, so she divorced him rather than leave her government job lol) But I digress...

So I was pondering this "box fill" thing in Canada. Is that a thing in America too? Why is it a thing at all? Heat?

I'm considering the Laundry Room box I have in the image above post #19, eight... that's a lot of wire nuts to fit in a box... If I come down from the fuse box into an electrical box in the crawlspace & split off 3 romex, 1 to each room's circuit, that's okay code wise? Like you can have a box in the basement with just a plastic cover on it yeah? Does that work even if you have radiant floor heating?

 

[Mystriss]

I spent 45+ years as an electrician and I never heard of 5-way circuit. Please describe one.

Might be a one off? For the kitchen lights I've got a switch at the pantry, the entry from mudroom, one at the casual "breakfast nook/great room", one at the office, & one at the dining room. Though I added another one at lounge/bar/theater so I guess it's a 6 way circuit now?

I hate having to walk across a room to turn off lights. I like switches everywhere I'm going to enter or leave a room heh Like right now I have a hanging light over my peninsula in the kitchen which only has a switch at the "foyer" door way. I use the other doorway to my computer room far more, but no switch so I constantly have to walk across the kitchen to turn off that peninsula light when everyone else goes to bed. Annoys me constantly so it's on my mind a lot when it comes to designing this pretend house's electrical lol

 

[Mystriss]

What do you call it when there is 5 or 6 switches for some lights? I guess I just assumed it would be called a circuit since that's what it is. Is there a special term or is it just ignored and not mentioned as a "thing'?

The switches used are beginning and ending with 3-ways, then 4-way's for all the "middle" switches right? At least that's what I understand from the internets

 

[Mystriss]

I'm not sure I'd say that I have no idea what I'm doing That said I put some books in the Amazon cart to buy next time I've piled in over $25 (I refuse to pay for Prime - literally doesn't arrive any faster for me, but I do like free shipping to Alaska heh)

I think I'm going to wait on figuring out the NFPA and AHJ stuff, it's not relevant to my state and I don't really plan on having a career here.

Most of my questions are about code so I'm debating if the McGraw Hills NESC 2023 Handbook @ $56 is good enough, or if I am better served to spring for the official IEEE 2023 code book @ $270. I've always been interested in electrician stuff, but other than futzing around my own house, I'm not likely to use the information gleaned - I just like to learn stuff. Plus I do want to tackle plumbing, framing, HVAC, security, and septic systems, so I can't be buying every official code book.

 

[Mystriss]

Ah yeah I got them mixed up, I do want NEC, NESC is way over even my fake pay grade 😅

 

[Mystriss]

The 12th edition of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Electrical-Wiring-Residential-Commercial/dp/0971977984/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LJDFLQ1NNN3F&keywords=practical+home+wiring&qid=1705326251&sprefix=practical+home+wiring,aps,93&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do:amzn1.fos.18ed3cb5-28d5-4975-8bc7-93deae8f9840

taught me everything I needed to know. It is far out of date now but I suggest you look for a used copy of an edition a few years back.

The actual code book is very expensive and very hard to understand. Half the people doing the inspections don't understand all of it.

I a non licensed person will be happy to answer what I can.

In addition to the two recommended post 2 (Ugly's) I've added the one you suggested and this one Mike Holt's Illustrated Guide to Understanding the National Electrical Code Volume 1, Based on the 2023 NEC which puts me past clicking the order button. A few weeks and I'll be reading code stuffs 🥰 Though I enjoy computer programing so reading electrical code probably isn't as boring for me as for most folks hahaha

 

[Mystriss]

I always find it amusing that minds tend to lean in certain directions sometimes.

I started coding... well, in the beginning I suppose, the early 90s. My high school nights were not spent drinking and smoking, but playing programing games. Like we'd code viruses on disk and you'd infect your computer and try to stop/prevent/cure it before you had to reformat the hard-drive lol Ah DOS, so easy to replace. Now a days the idea of reinstalling windows is heart wrenching hahaha I lost my hard drive a few months ago and I'm /still/ trying to reinstall programs I wrote a ASCII based DND dungeon game as well. Never really did anything that paid with the Basic/Pascal/C++ though, like computers were not popular enough for it yet, went Accounting instead. But in the 2000 I was coding for websites.

 

[Mystriss]

My "native language" is Fortran IV and my first program was on 80-column punch cards. Fortran was very clunky compared to later languages. But to this day, I still "think" in Fortran and then "translate". Even on spreadsheets.

Last language was VB6 (just enough to write and debug one useful program).

You got me beat lol punch cards 😅 I'm one of them brand new fangled 3.5" disk and first portable computer kids

My last coding project was VB also, whatever the lite version in Excel is, A few years ago I coded a year-at-a-glance scheduling program that saves/recalls all the "meetings" from separate worksheets. Now I have like 60 lines of text to plan out how ever many years in advance I want and it always in the same place (off to the right) in my calendar page. I like it a lot and use it almost daily. Only thing I wish I had added was the ability to print off the daily schedule part for my husband so he can follow along and manage his free time better heh

 

[Mystriss]

I went to college for "computerized bookkeeping" - it was mostly hand-ledger but there was a bit of time dedicated to computer work, ya know "just in case" computers aren't just a fad lol

 

[Mystriss]

Many posts ago

Limiting circuits to 10 lights or receptacles was mentioned

I try to think more about usage, would have no problem putting 10 bedroom receps on a circuit for example, but would rather limit kitchen receptacles to 2 for example

And with LED'S, hardly ever worry about lighting loads nowadays

Ah I thought it was a code thing, it's mentioned in almost every online recommendation (receptacles and lights even.) I do plan on LED's, call us odd but we really love the stark cold white/blue light from 5K panels. Though I figure there's a chance some light fixture could come out that I just have to have even if it's not my 5K LED. Like I have soft pink 60W incandescent above my peninsula and I love those there. Staring straight into a LED is rough on the eyeballs lol

 

[Mystriss]

I use Wago connectors and pigtails for receptacles on 20 amp circuits. This video by Benjamin Sahlstrom shows how.

I do all lights on separate 15 amp circuits.

Still not so sure about the push connectors, but the rolling wires into the box, lengths to cut them, and pigtails in use is helpful. So nice and tidy. Wish my receptacles looked like those.