Cakins
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About to take on rewiring my house in preparation for a panel upgrade which an electrician will do. Local code allows me to do the wiring for the circuits.
Been reading a bunch, with a book titled "Wiring a House" as one well referenced book. It's by Rex Cauldwell, a master electrician, published by Taunton. I like a lot of his info, but am unclear on part of the basic circuit planning.
In talking about the guages of wire he uses, he says he usually reserves 14-3 for one circuit which would have the hard-wired smoke alarms on it and any 3-wire switching items. Ok, that sounds easy. But then he also mentions that all hard-wired smoke alarms must be wired together so that when one goes off, they all go off. Again, no problem, except ...
He then mentions that it's best to put smoke alarms in the bedrooms, rather than just outside them as code allows. His mapped 2 bedroom circuits, which require AFCI protection, appear to be individual circuits, though.
Of course, individual houses require individual design of circuit maps. But how can all the smoke alarms be wired together and have the bedrooms be on isolated circuits - not to mention also have the other 3-way switched items on the same circuit?
My house is small, just 2 BR, 1 bath. If I put the smoke alarms, BR lights for both BR's and other 3-way items on one 14-3 circuit, then I have to make that entire circuit AFCI protected, right? Then, if I do the receptacle circuits for the BR's as two separate circuits, each of these must be AFCI also. Am I thinking of this correctly?
I guess my confusion is that it seems like on one hand he's showing everything in each BR on it's own AFCI circuit, yet if that includes a smoke detector, then those have to be on the same circuit as the other smoke detectors in the house, which means they can't be on the individual BR circuits.
Any insight is appreciated.
Been reading a bunch, with a book titled "Wiring a House" as one well referenced book. It's by Rex Cauldwell, a master electrician, published by Taunton. I like a lot of his info, but am unclear on part of the basic circuit planning.
In talking about the guages of wire he uses, he says he usually reserves 14-3 for one circuit which would have the hard-wired smoke alarms on it and any 3-wire switching items. Ok, that sounds easy. But then he also mentions that all hard-wired smoke alarms must be wired together so that when one goes off, they all go off. Again, no problem, except ...
He then mentions that it's best to put smoke alarms in the bedrooms, rather than just outside them as code allows. His mapped 2 bedroom circuits, which require AFCI protection, appear to be individual circuits, though.
Of course, individual houses require individual design of circuit maps. But how can all the smoke alarms be wired together and have the bedrooms be on isolated circuits - not to mention also have the other 3-way switched items on the same circuit?
My house is small, just 2 BR, 1 bath. If I put the smoke alarms, BR lights for both BR's and other 3-way items on one 14-3 circuit, then I have to make that entire circuit AFCI protected, right? Then, if I do the receptacle circuits for the BR's as two separate circuits, each of these must be AFCI also. Am I thinking of this correctly?
I guess my confusion is that it seems like on one hand he's showing everything in each BR on it's own AFCI circuit, yet if that includes a smoke detector, then those have to be on the same circuit as the other smoke detectors in the house, which means they can't be on the individual BR circuits.
Any insight is appreciated.