8 circuits in one room!

[green.bubbly]

Almost finished wiring my kitchen today. Have the range and the light switches left. Eight freakin circuits! I think there is more wire in my kitchen than the entire rest of the house.

2 separate receptacle circuits.
1 light
dish washer
range
garbage disposal
refrigerator
microwave

 

[Chaz]

Yeah, kitchens eat up the space in a breaker box quickly. I'm not sure you need a separate breakler for each appliance, but if you look on the installation instructions that's what they say...
Seems to me the garbage disposal at least could share a breaker.

 

[Gary S]

That is pretty normal for a house today. My previous house had 4 circuits just for the receptacles alone, and it wasn't too much.
And, that doesn't count any of the appliances or light circuits.

 

[Steevo]

Well done!

 

[Jawn]

What bugs me is my kitchen has 2-3 20 amp circuits for receptacles, and there's only one 15 amp circuit in the garage.

Kitchen is adjacent to the garage, so I end up using a short 12/3 extension cord to plug the compressor (plate on the motor says 17.8A) into the receptacles in the kitchen.

It's a rented property and I don't plan to stay here more than another year or two, so it's not worth it to me to put in another circuit.

 

[theoldwizard1]

IMHO, the NEC is way over kill in the kitchen and bath area.

My house was built in the early 50s and has dishwasher, disposer and one outlet on one 15A circuit.

The second counter top outlet, (gas) stove and refrigerator on another 15A circuit.

In 35 years I have never popped a break, even when running the dishwasher and garbage disposer at the same time.

The circuit for the bathroom would trip when my daughter would dry her hair, but that is because there was a window A/C unit in another room and a refrigerator in a third room all on the same 15A circuit.

 

[Gary S]

What bugs me is my kitchen has 2-3 20 amp circuits for receptacles, and there's only one 15 amp circuit in the garage.
.

That *****. But, that is one of the biggest reasons I bought a house that had no garage. I built my own garage after buying the house.

My garage has (10) 20 amp circuits for receptacles.

The house wiring was done by someone other than me, so it has only (3) 20 amp receptacle circuits, and (1) 15 amp receptacle circuit. I would have wired it different if I had done it.

 

[info2x]

Well that's better than one circuit in 8 rooms!

 

[Aceman]

IMHO, the NEC is way over kill in the kitchen and bath area.

Let's hear it then. What should be the minimum NEC requirements?

 

[Steevo]

I like lots of circuits. Don't want the lights going off when I overload the blender, or I might spill my margaritas in the dark.

 

[Gary S]

Let's hear it then. What should be the minimum NEC requirements?

I'm a firm believer that the NEC rules are there for good reason. If you have receptacles you never use in your lifetime, will you ever know which ones you didn't use? If you never trip a breaker, will you ever miss tripping breakers?

 

[matt151617]

That sounds about right. I have 7: outlets, stove, oven, lights, dishwasher, microwave, and fridge. Plus the stove and oven have dual breakers so that takes up even more space.

With only a few circuits, you could actually be overloading a circuit. The breakers aren't designed to trip to a small overload right away.