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#4471 09/29/01 12:57 AM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 151
D
Member
'66, did you ever get out of your nightmare house you were wiring a while back?

#4472 09/29/01 01:11 AM
A
Anonymous
Unregistered
>We try to get around voltage drop by using subpanels where we can.
Would you mind throwing some numbers and locations at me?

What size in amps, feeder, number of spaces?
Where do you place the panels? What floors? How are they decorated?

I remember the little debate about whether pulling two 12-2 NM-B cables was more expensive than pulling one 12-3. Pulling one 6-3 (or even 2-3) instead of ten or twenty-five 12-2 cables sounds cleaner.

#4473 09/29/01 06:36 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,392
S
Member
Wire size focuses on VD, Fill, Ease, etc, But now, for VT sparky's it also focuses on AFCI's in their requirement of ALL bed & living area circuits. So this in itself forces us to rethink methods, or pitch for a lot of the little boogers

Once the above is considered, all we really need meet is T220-3(a)'s 3VA per square, that's all.

VD..
a #12 @16A (80%) has approx 4.8v or 4% loss @ 75'
a #14 @ 12A (80%) has approx 4.8V or 4% loss @ 65'
not a world of difference eh?
[Linked Image]

#4474 09/29/01 06:59 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,392
S
Member
From Mike H's newsletters;
just stating the obvious here....
[Linked Image]

If you wire bedroom branch circuits with one circuit for lighting and receptacles, this change will have little effect. But the practice of separating the lighting from the receptacle circuits in dwelling unit bedrooms will now require two AFCI circuit breakers.

#4475 09/29/01 08:23 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 2,723
Likes: 1
Broom Pusher and
Member
To me, I would use #12 as a minimum size, just because I am that way [wierd?].
If [actually when] I wire my own House, #12 cu will be the minimum size [might go as far as using 15 amp c/b on #12 cu!].
Plenty of circuits, so 30 years down the line the ampacity per circuit will be hopefully available [if needed] without crawling thru the attic. Also to keep separate circuit for rooms, so rooms can be "isolated" if needed.
Once again, I am just that way! This would make the typical Tract wiring EC go broke, or bid 3 times higher than even the most highest bid! Possibly would workout for an EC doing Custom Houses with Clients who want a "Custom, Above-Average Electrical System".

As far as Boxfill, I have become reluctant to concentrate a lot of splices in any outlets / J-Boxes [unless absolutely necessary]. Also prefer to use large, deep Boxes and splice everything before hanging the P-Rings - that way all the wirenuts can be easilly set to the side[s] of the boxes. Of course this is not the same with PVC [Non-Metallic] Boxes - except placing wirenuts to the sides.

My biasing is due to the almost zero amount of Residential work I do, plus only have done a total of 4 tracts, 3 two story Apartment complexes, and 4 Custom Houses in my entire 18 year Career as a sparky.
I just do not know how critical things are in the Residential wiring frontier [Linked Image]
It's hard to make good comments when >95% of my work experience for 18 years is in the Commercial Fields.

Dspark:
I was going to say the same thing about back stabbed Receptacles! You beat me to it [Linked Image]

(snipped text) Here's a killer reason for you: 3. No more backstabbed receptacles! (snipped text)

Scott SET


Scott " 35 " Thompson
Just Say NO To Green Eggs And Ham!
#4476 09/29/01 10:43 AM
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 449
F
Member
When I was doing residential, I never used plastic boxes for multi-gang switches. I didn't like the way they flexed and the drywallers being able to twist them out of square. Made installing a 4G switch plate real hard. I used Raco 605 boxes and ganged 602s on to them and then used a cruiser bar across them from stud to stud. I never "looped" switches either.

#4477 09/29/01 12:40 PM
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
P
Member
According to the NEC tables I have here (1970s), #14 is rated 15A max. and #12 is 20A.

I assume that you would always use #12 on a 20A branch. So long as length (& therefore voltage drop) isn't a problem, what's the objection to #14 on a 15A circuit?

#4478 09/29/01 03:18 PM
A
Anonymous
Unregistered
>I would use #12 as a minimum size, just because I am that way [weird?].
There are several of us who are weird that way.

> [might go as far as using 15 amp c/b on #12 cu!].
Of course. This is normal!!

>I am just that way!
So am I!

>I was going to say the same thing
Reading your post, I see that we think alike on quite a few things-- except that I think that $3.15 circuit breakers are too inexpensive to skimp on. Didn't Virgil say that he uses them for filler plates?

I should explain my comment made in another thread that I now backwire receptacles. That is backwiring with screw-down clamps -- not backstabbing.

I am using commercial receptacles now. I have to show people the package and explain that they are higher grade receptacles (plugs don't fall out so easily). Otherwise, people think that they are bad because they are so hard to get a plug into them the first ten times.


[This message has been edited by Dspark (edited 09-29-2001).]

#4479 09/30/01 11:57 AM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 5,392
S
Member
I didn't like the way they flexed and the drywallers being able to twist them out of square.
LOL! I hear that!
Fred, those drywallers can sure be a knarly bunch!
[Linked Image]

#4480 09/30/01 09:50 PM
Joined: Apr 2001
Posts: 449
F
Member
Around here it seems that a guy has to have at least 3 DWIs before he can even apply for a drywalling job! A couple of local outfits have a 19 year-old kid drive the crew around because they don't have driver's licenses. They sit in the van at noon and have a hydraulic lunch and they scram off the jobsite promptly at 4:00PM so they can be home before their ankle bracelets go off at 5:00PM!

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