DIYbanter - View Single Post

RayV

wrote:
On 5 Sep 2006 12:25:40 -0700, "RayV" wrote:

A friend who will be helping me suggested I put a sub panel on the
second floor to cut back on the amount of wire run. While this may be
true I'm not that thrilled with this idea. Main reason being I assume
the inspector will want the sub panel in an accessable area (not a
closet) that will require a 'decorative' picture. Any thoughts on
this?

That may be the best option. You can then take advantage of diversity.
You won't have every circuit on the sub panel running at any
significant fraction of 100%. If there are no fixed in place loads you
are probably only looking at 3va per square foot as youir feeder
design load, even though you will have breakers in there that add up
to a lot more. You can support 2400 square feet of general lighting
load on a 2 pole 30a feeder/breaker. When you finally do plug in that
hair dryer it will be on a 10ga wire most of the way, not a 12 or 14.
If you really think you are going to load this area up you could go to
a 8ga/40a sub/feeder but that may be overkill.

I do have a wife and two girls so hair dryers are a concern, the
monster that the missus uses dims the lights on the whole block when it
fires up.

If I understand fixed load correctly the only thing I have that runs
all the time is the Radon fan.

Upstairs I have 4 BR and 2 baths. I figure that will be 8 circuits:
one outlet circuit for each BR
one shared outlet circuit for the 2 baths
three lighting circuits (2 rooms per)

Overkill? Ten years from now each of the girls will probably have their
own computer, mp3-cell phone chargers, stereo, tv, dvd player, etc.
You know the necessities.