The thing that I find strange is that for years, we’ve been told that all dinning room, kitchen and pantry receptacles had to be on one or more 20A SABC’s with no other outlets, because of concern over the heavier loads associated with cord and plug connected small appliances used in these areas.
Then they allow the use of receptacles fed from a 15A general purpose branch circuit to be installed in place of lighting outlets and also allow them to be used as general-purpose receptacles as long as only one-half of each duplex is switched. I just can’t see that the homeowner is going to care, as to which circuit is which when he’s plugging something in.
So, I guess it seems that as far as the NEC is concerned anyway, I could install one dinning room receptacle from a 20A SABC, and then wire the rest of my dinning room receptacles in 14/2 on a 15A circuit, as long as I switch one-half of each of the duplex receptacles, maintain spacing requirements and have AFCI’s on both branch circuits.
Seems like a giant step backward to me, but I suppose the upside to this is that I could save money by not using so much 12/2 NM.
