[giansean]

Hi All,

I am renovating our brick/block house which was built in 1951. The areas in question for this post are a kitchen/dining area. Until my previous post I had no idea that outlets in a dining room were required to be wired on SABC's, but now I do This has thrown a wrench in my original plan but right now is a good time to find that out.

If you refer to the attached pic, I have some new outlets in the kitchen eating area plus the "dining room" which will contain receptacles (yellow circles). These were kinda pre-existing but since I added insulation/framing to the block walls I had to secure new boxes to the wall in roughly the same place as before. I also changed out the old 14# AC to 12# NM - an unintentional move but very lucky if I am bound by code.

I used quotes above for the DR because we just chose it to be a DR.. otherwise it looks like any other room - not sure if that will make a difference so I'm calling it out). The blue rircles are existing 14# AC receptacles, one of which serves the office. We were not planning to demo the walls in which these were installed, so hopefully we can get a pass as existing fixtures. That just leaves the two yellows.

The other red icons (lights and receptacles) were outlets that I originally wanted to tie to the blue circuit (per my previous post). The office/laundry rooms will be code compliant w/ the needed stuff - I just left it out for simplicity's sake.

Originally I was going to tie the 3 kitchen outlets into it's existing 15a kitchen circuit and call it a day. However it appears they may need to be on their own circuit. This is not a huge problem, just a little more work.

Now the questions:

- Can/should I also tie the 2 DR yellows to the new kitchen circuit?
- If not, could I get away with connecting them to the existing DR receptacle circuit? As of now it has no other job except receptacles (originally it had more than half the house and cellar!)
- Either way, can/should I tie the red stuff into the blue stuff?

I don't forsee a huge load no matter what I do. I just want to pass inspection

More Notes:

- Most of the kitchen was renovated in the 90's and is code compliant as well as out of scope for this work. I could probably tie in to an existing circuit but it would be just as easy to pull a new home run (probably less work in fact)
- All lights in question planned to be LED's - any ceiling fan will be of new/modern operation

Sorry for the huge post and sincere thanks for any advice. I truly could not do this myself w/o help from this site!

Thx,
Sean

 

[Arrow3030]

Run a new 20 amp circuit to all the yellow locations. Don't mess with the existing blues. Those should be preexisting non conforming as long as the walls aren't open.

 

[giansean]

Run a new 20 amp circuit to all the yellow locations. Don't mess with the existing blues. Those should be preexisting non conforming as long as the walls aren't open.

Thanks! As for the reds, can I tie those into the blues? It seems like very little work for a whole new circuit (I anticipate the blues will have zero load 90% of the time)

 

[joed]

Red laundry room needs to be dedicated.
Yellow needs to be at least two 20amp small appliance branch circuits.
I'm not sure if the red outside the laundry is considered kitchen, but if it is, then it needs to be 20 amp SABC also.

 

[Arrow3030]

Tying into 60's AC isn't usually a good idea. You'll be modifying a circuit so the entire circuit will have to be arc fault protected. This can be a booger if the house has multiwire branch circuits or has had a lot of neutrals going all over the place. Does the existing wiring method have a grounding conductor? If it doesn't, that just adds to the mess.
You can figure all this out if you want but I prefer to stay away from antique wiring methods

 

[Arrow3030]

Also, you should only need one SABC for the yellows so long as they aren't going to the kitchen counter. If they're just wall space receptacles, one 20 amp is fine.

 

[giansean]

Thanks all. Just wanted to clarify on the need to put the laundry lights on a dedicated circuit. The room will already have 2 GFCI circuits (one for receptacles and one for the laundry machines). From what I understood it was acceptable (even preferable) to have some lighting on a separate circuit and I didn't think it was a problem having that circuit serve multiple rooms as long as the GFCI's stay separate. If it's really a problem I can hang the lights from the GFCI receptacle circuit (this circuit only serves the laundry room) but the room placement is such that it would be SO much easier to use a circuit coming from another room.

 

[giansean]

Sorry one more side question - is there any problem with putting the single red receptacle (it's in a hallway not kitchen/dining area) outside the laundry room on the kitchen/dining room "yellow" 20a circuit? (it is also 12#... just not sure whether it's allowed)

 

[joed]

If it is NOT in the kitchen then yes it is a problem according to code.

 

[giansean]

Figures.. way to orphan one single receptacle NEC

 

[joed]

That last answer came out wrong.
If it is NOT in the kitchen then it NOT a problem by the code.
If it is in the kitchen and I think it might be considered in the kitchen then it needs to be a 20 amp SABC.

 

[giansean]

Yeah no worries it's the simplest of drawings and doesn't include any doors or openings. If you saw it in real life there is no way you would consider it part of the kitchen