Electrical – Bathroom circuits code

electrical

I am putting in a 1/2 bath and I am planning my electric. I will be running my current 20amp bathroom receptacle circuit to this new bath so they can share that circuit. Can the new bathroom share a light circuit with the hallway light circuit or should I be running the current bathroom light circuit to the new bathroom lights? So, the two bathrooms would share a circuit for the receptacles and a circuit for the bathroom lights?

Best Answer

Yes, bathroom lighting and other hardwired loads are always allowed to be on other, non-bathroom circuits, except for these particular ones:

  • Not Kitchen countertop circuits, since they must be dedicated to that. NEC 210.11(C)(1)
  • Not the laundry room circuit, since it must be dedicated to that. NEC 210.11(C)(2)
  • Not a bathroom receptacle circuit that serves other bathrooms. (NEC 210.11(C)(3) which is what ThreePhaseEel is talking about.)
    • However, it's allowed if the bathroom recep circuit serves only this bathroom.

So for instance, suppose your existing bathroom recep circuit, the one you want to extend, already serves non-bathroom loads, but it's "grandfathered" because this was setup before Code changed. That's fine; it gets to stay grandfathered; but you can't use it for the new bathroom. At all.

The rule of grandfathering is you can't make the situation worse.