I've done #12 throughout Houses and as a standard I'm not convinced that it's better overall. I would agree that it would be better for feeders to lessen Voltage drop and larger incidental loads. But as far as connection to the devices goes I'm not sure it should be used with standard-grade wiring devices. It sometimes seems that terminal screws cannot be tightened sufficiently to securely hold the wire. They sometimes get stripped out or come loose when the devices are pushed back into the box.

Real World:
From a job pricing standpoint #12 costs more, needs larger boxes or special routing to avoid it (more wire) takes more time wiring devices and folding into boxes and may need spec grade devices. It's certainly an option that could be offered to the builder/owner, but if you went with this as your standard and were competing for price against others using #14 you'd be starving.

That's just the way it is. If they change the code minimum to #12 then everyone's at 'apples to apples'

[Linked Image]
Bill

Bill