Source
r/HomeImprovement•
iaalaughlin

House wiring

Largely a philosophical question, but why on earth do builders/electricians wire as much as they can onto a single circuit? And then label the breaker with something useless like "outlets". Cause there's not just outlets on the circuit as the light just went out. And it doesn't cover all the outlets, since the detector still says there's power on the circuit.

Oh, look. It's on the circuit labeled microwave. Even though the outlet is in the bedroom.

I hate people who do pisspoor jobs.

That is all.

Posted Aug 8, 2022, 1:58 AM UTC

3825
MadSciTech•

Helpful tip, write the breaker # behind the outlet cover. Makes it much easier to find the right breaker next time.

69
GalianoGirl•

Thank you, this is a fantastic tip. I have written paint details on the back of switch plates too.

My place is getting an electrical upgrade in the next 12 months. The house is 70 years old and the wiring is a mess. Extra light fixtures and outlets added, the labels mean nothing.

7
BasicBrewing•

I made an excel sheet that has a map of my house and every outlet/swtich labelled. They are then all linked back to the circuit they are on. I also have a transfer switch for generator power, so those are matched up as well. Tedious to put togetehr the first time, but super, super handy to have anytime I need to work on something

4
DrBubbles•

This is a great idea!

2
SpartEng76•

This is great if you're replacing a switch but I think it's still worth the time to label the breakers correctly. For instance I wanted to replace a ceiling light but the switch is in a box with 3 other switches, so that's 8 screws I'd have to take out and put back in just to see what breaker number it is. If it's labeled correctly in the first place I wouldn't need to do that.

2
Dragnier84•

This is going into my notebook. Thanks

1
iaalaughlinOP•

That’s a great tip, thanks!

1
JerseyWiseguy•

Money.

The builder says, "I'll hire the electrician who can wire all of these houses for the lowest price." And then the builder does just that. And that electrician does it so it meets building code, but in the most cost-efficient manner possible.

25
iaalaughlinOP•

Does it really take that much more time/money to wire things so each circuit is a room?

1
MrFurzzy•

Yes. Giving each room its own dedicated circuit means a homerun for each room. That is a significantly larger amount of wiring and time required.

27
therealkevinard•

If you save a dollar a thousand times... You saved a thousand dollars.

Especially in new-build subdivisions, subcontractor deals are chunks of hundreds of properties. Yeah, they'll be happy to shave a few hundred dollars off of a few hundred jobs.

16
JerseyWiseguy•

Each circuit requires a new wire from the breaker box to wherever you want that circuit to be. So, suppose you have a breaker box in your basement, and three bedrooms on the second floor. It's much less time, effort, and materials, to run one wire up, then just run that wire from outlet to outlet, from room to room, than to run three separate wires up there, with one for each room. And, if you're wiring an entire housing development, all of that money adds up.

And, sadly, nobody buying those new houses is actually going to see how the house is wired and say, "Nah, I don't want it," just because there isn't a different circuit for each bedroom. And even if one person did miraculously say that, somebody else would just buy the house, so it's no loss to the builder.

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iaalaughlinOP•

Well, my house was built in the last ten years and is not wired anywhere near you described.

Lighting in one room to be on another rooms circuit makes sense, especially if you have to do repairs.

What doesn't make sense is an external outlet to be on the kitchen's circuit, even though there is a clearly labeled circuit that says 'external'. What it goes to yet, I haven't figured out.

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1
coogie•

Yes, that is overkill and significantly more expensive. With tract homes especially, they wire a house in a day or two or else they won't make money. In custom homes it takes longer but they're not going to do more than they have to unless there is a reason. Load calculations for the general lighting circuit of a house (which includes outlets except bathrooms, kitchen, garage, and outside) are done by providing 3VA for every square feet.

So let's say you have a 4 bedroom 2200 sq ft house, the load calculation for that is 6600VA which you divide by 120V and you get 55 Amps which if you divide by 20 means that you need 3 20 amp circuits or 4 15 amp circuits.

So for this particular house, 3 20 amp circuits is all that the NEC requires for all the lighting and outlets (excluding baths, kitchen, and garage). When you wire it, a lot of how you decide what room gets what depends on how the framing is. For example if you're wiring 2 bedrooms that share a wall, it'd be a lot easier to share the same circuit for the outlets on that wall than to run a whole new homerun.

Also, it's good to have shared circuits within a room because it decreases the chance of overloading a single circuit and if one breaker trips or has an issue, you can still get power in that room from the other circuit until you figure it out.

If the homeowner specifies what they want and they are willing to pay for all the extra wire and work, then I'm sure they'll do it, but it'll cost you: Instead of 3 20 amp circuits, you'd have 4 for the bedrooms, plus 2 more for dining room, living room, and "misc" lighting for the kitchen and baths (lighting and outlets are separated).

So TLDR; Yes, you'd end up having to run double or more homeruns, and spend more time planning how to divide the rooms.

1
iaalaughlinOP•

Thanks for the info! That makes a lot of sense.

I think I would still prefer to have more circuits than fewer, and better labeled circuits though.

In the meantime, I think I'll mark the circuits, outlets and switches with colors instead of the useless labels.

1
coogie•

I found that typing up the label gives a lot more room to type at least 3 or 4 locations so it's more descriptive. There are PDFs that have fillable templates for various manufacturers. Exel works great too!

1
Mysterious-Ad7019•

Because for the majority that never trip the breaker, it works fine.

5
BasicBrewing•

but why on earth do builders/electricians wire as much as they can onto a single circuit?

  1. Because running multiple circuits cost more in time and materials

  2. They may be limited to how much space they have in the breaker box

And then label the breaker with something useless like "outlets"

Because other than "kitchen", they don't often know what the rooms will be. I can tell you from experience that having a breaker labelled "Mabel's room" is just as useless.

5
iaalaughlinOP•

Sounds like a bigger breaker box is in order.

And why call it outlets when it obviously doesn’t have all the outlets on it?

Why is the outlet in the master bedroom on the freaking microwave circuit?

And finally, “bed 1”, “bed 2”, etc is a thing.

0
BasicBrewing•

Sounds like a bigger breaker box is in order.

See #1

And why call it outlets when it obviously doesn’t have all the outlets on it?

Could have been added on after

Why is the outlet in the master bedroom on the freaking microwave circuit?

That one is just dumb to the level of being unsafe

And finally, “bed 1”, “bed 2”, etc is a thing.

True, but I also having things like "living room" and "Sitting room" that don't make any sense in the context of my house.

But moot point. Best thing I did was buy a new directory label it in a way that makes sense (not just names of rooms but like "SW Bedroom" that are discernable by anybody) and map everything electric in the house

1
Toger•

Unfortunately because it costs >$0 to do it better, and 99.999% of buyers don't look at that until long after the sale, and there are plenty of buyers in line that won't look at it if you are the .00001%.

2
PretorHome•

Hahaha! Love it! I live in a 50 year old house and one circuit was marked "Bread Box" that turned off everything in the living room and master bedroom. I can only assume that's because the master is next to the living room and the living room backs on to part of the kitchen were maybe once upon a time someone might have had a bread box.

2
knoxvilleNellie•

If you have ever been in a house in the framing stage, as it’s being wired you would clearly understand how outlets in one room are also on the same circuit as another. Many outlets in different rooms share the same wall. Running a circuit that’s controlled by a gfcI also will go to several locations as well. It’s all done to limit the amount of wire used, and labor., both of which cost money.

2
jstar77•

Look who's all fancy with labels on their breakers. The last 2 houses I lived in didn't have a single label on the breaker box.

1
iaalaughlinOP•

You have a point…

1