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2ajsmama

Thoughts on rearranging ckts?

2ajsmama
13 years ago

I was just looking at my house plans (marked up as-built since it wasn't wired exactly according to plan). I've been changing a few things around in garage (not on plans), just happened to look again at kitchen lighting. All the recessed lights (11) and the island pendants (3 lamps) were supposed to be on their own ckt. But the pendants and 5 of the cans ended up on a ckt with the mudroom lights (2, single lamps) and mudroom (2) and FR (2) receptacles.

Currently breaker #6 has 10 lamps (counting island as 3) with 5 being CFLs and 4 receptacles (seldom used) on it, breaker #7 has a ceiling fan (rarely used except for lighting), a halogen track light, a single-lamp pendant, 2 dual-lamp floods (seldom used), 1 single-lamp coach light (seldom used) and 6 duplex receptacles (used all the time for 2 table lamps and a radio) on it. Ckt #20 only has 6 recessed (CFL) lights on it.

Now, we've put CFLs in the cans, one of the FR receptacles (in the breakfast nook near kitchen) doesn't *ever* get used since it's right behind my chair, the other 3 receptacles only get used as I'm moving the vacuum cleaner around so they're not all in use at the same time.

I could very easily right now put the mudroom lights and 1 receptacle on the garage light circuit since one of the 3-way switches is in the same box as the garage light switch. The other receptacle could stay on ckt#6, but move that 3-way switch above it (just pull 14/3 from that location through basement to other switch location, replace single pole switch in kitchen with 3-way) so we can turn them as on as come in at night, not have to cross 4ft into the room to next switch. That would leave the kitchen cans on ckt#6 until we got to tearing out the ceiling (?) to remove 1, reposition 1, and put them on ckt#20 with the others (I really wanted them all on same dimmer switch but builder said can't dim CFLs so he wired half the cans to one switch and half to another).

That would give me 11 lamps (3 coach lights, 4 sockets, 1 dual flood on a motion sensor, and 2 overheads in the mudroom) and 1 receptacle by the exterior mudroom door on the 15A garage light ckt. Leaves 3 receptacles (plus the GFCI outside), 3 pendants, and 5 cans (for now) on ckt#6. But I can't see an easy way to get the outdoor lights (1 coach and 2 dual floods) off ckt#7, which I'd like to dedicate to the FR lights and receptacles unless we pull the whole ceiling down and put the FR lights on ckt#6 and all the cans on ckt#20. Or pull off the back wall to add a sunroom and put the exterior lighting and the sunroom on a new ckt.

Funny, LR ended up on its own ckt (good for all the entertainment electronics) and so did the DR, which only ever has the china cabinet puck lights plugged in, there is 1 GFCI on the porch coming from each of these rooms, but the back of the house seemed to get loaded all on 2 ckts (except for dedicated appliance ckts).

Thoughts? Sorry for rambling, just "thinking out loud."

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