Electrical – Hooking up additional outlets & lights to a central vac circuit

applianceselectricalnecwiring

My unfinished basement has a central vac on its own 20A circuit. The central vac is plugged into a 15A duplex outlet (not hardwired). I want to finish my basement and build a closet around the vac and the water heater.

Can I run additional outlets and lights off this circuit (all in the closet), or is that against the US NEC? I understand certain "fixed" appliances like ovens and dishwashers are required to have dedicated circuits, but this has a plug so I'm hoping it doesn't fall into that category.

Thanks.

Best Answer

Is the vacuum unit fastened in place?

NEC 2011 210.23 Permissible Loads. ... A branch circuit supplying two or more outlets or receptacles shall supply only the loads specified according to its size as specified in 210.23(A) through (D)...

(A) 15- and 20-Ampere Branch Circuits: ...

(1) Cord-and-Plug-Connected Equipment Not Fastened in Place. The rating of anyone cord-and-plug-connected utilization equipment not fastened in place shall not exceed 80 percent of the branch-circuit ampere rating.

(2) Utilization Equipment Fastened in Place. The total rating of utilization equipment fastened in place, other than luminaires, shall not exceed 50 percent of the branch-circuit ampere rating where lighting units, cord-and-plug-connected utilization equipment not fastened in place, or both, are also supplied.

Utilization equipment is anything that connects to AC power.

You can have more than one installed device on a circuit, but if they total >50% of available ampacity, the circuit must be dedicated to them. In this case, a good installer will install a single (not duplex) receptacle.

If the water heater is already sharing a duplex receptacle with your 12A load, then it must be either

  • less than 4 amps, or
  • an MWBC. (multi-wire branch circuit, 2 hots sharing a neutral).

Most likely the manufacturer chose 12A because 125% of that is 15A, which makes it the perfect size for a 15A circuit. 125% because continuous load. Not that I vacuum for >3 hours at a time!