I bought a house built in '69 in northern VA a few months ago. Having mapped out the upstairs circuits, I've discovered that the whole place is a wiring mess. I am remodeling each room and bathroom due to really bad drywall patchwork and insulation suspicions (confirmed now that I've torn down some walls), so I'm figuring this is the best possible time to fix the spaghetti wiring/circuitry.
To give a layout of sorts: Split level home. Upstairs where I am currently remodeling, I am working with 3 bedrooms connected via a hallway and 2 full bathrooms. One bathroom attached to the hallway, the other master bath is attached to the master bedroom. I've found a good spot to run wire from the basement up to the attic, then to each room. I would like to get each room and each bathroom on its own circuit (tell me if this is a dumb idea or not please).
For the bedrooms, I plan on using 15-A breakers with 14/2 romex (14/3 from light switch to fan to operate the overhead light and fan separately). Each smaller bedroom will have at most 6 outlets and one light switch. The master will have at most 8 outlets and one light switch. The number of outlets here is ball-parked based on putting a receptacle every 6' or so.
For the bathrooms, I plan on using 20-A breakers with 12/2 romex since larger wattage items will be used there. The bathrooms are fairly small, so they will have at most 2 outlets (one being GFCI) and an overhead light/fan combo (currently absent from the master bath).
For the hallway, I've read up on the 3-way lighting that I need to meet code, but as that is already in place, I'm not going to do much modification there.
Mainly I am looking for a sanity check that it is OK to wire up that many outlets in a room on 15-A with 14 gauge romex. I see there is quite the debate in wiring with 12 vs 14 and 15- vs 20-A. I am going to be working with an electrician as well in order to make sure I'm meeting local code and to handle anything I'm uncomfortable with.
I'm coming over from stack overflow posting mostly coding questions, so I apologize if I'm posting like a total DIY noob. Thanks in advance.
Best Answer
Your plan as written probably doesn't follow code in a couple of places. If you're working with an electrician, you should have them approve your plan. Then you implement the plan, but they check your work. Don't do the work or buy materials until they have reviewed your plan.
From a usability standpoint, don't put the ceiling lights on the same circuit as the outlets in a room. All of the room ceiling lights can be on the same circuit. This way someone tripping a breaker in a room doesn't leave the room dark.
Along those same lines, you might put the hallway light on a separate circuit from the bedroom lights, but this is strictly a nice-to-have.
Unless you anticipate high loads in the bedrooms, you can put the outlets in the bedrooms all on the same circuit. It is common/customary to have the master outlets on a separate circuit, but not required.
Depending on the code your jurisdiction follows, it's likely that bathroom circuits must be dedicated to a single bathroom. The light in the bathroom can use that circuit, but it should be wired BEFORE the GFCI so that tripping the GFCI doesn't turn off the light. Alternatively, wire the lights to the bedroom lighting circuit.
Another code adoption dependency is AFCI breakers. You will likely need them for all of the circuits you have planned, including lights.
If you're pulling new wire, use 12 gauge everywhere. Using 14 gauge and 15 amp outlets everywhere doesn't save that much money.
And while you're up there, run a dedicated circuit for wired smoke detectors for all bedrooms and the hallway. Besides the fact that it's a good idea, based on the amount of work you're doing they may be required for your permits and inspection.