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I need a dedicated 15amp GFCI circuit for an air tub that I want to install in my masterbath.
How easy would it be to divert a dedicated 20amp plug and reroute that to my masterbath for the tub and make it GFCI? Then the old 20amp plug would tie into an existing circuit for that room.
The 20amp plug was overkill for my home theater system. The existing 20amp circuit for the lights and other outlets would be sufficient for the current electrical load.
All the wiring would take place on the second floor of my home. There are junction boxes and I believe my electrician would be able to tie into and reroute the 20amp dedicated circuit to the masterbath.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,774,074 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by joe123456
I need a dedicated 15amp GFCI circuit for an air tub that I want to install in my masterbath.
How easy would it be to divert a dedicated 20amp plug and reroute that to my masterbath for the tub and make it GFCI? Then the old 20amp plug would tie into an existing circuit for that room.
The 20amp plug was overkill for my home theater system. The existing 20amp circuit for the lights and other outlets would be sufficient for the current electrical load.
All the wiring would take place on the second floor of my home. There are junction boxes and I believe my electrician would be able to tie into and reroute the 20amp dedicated circuit to the masterbath.
Any electricians out there?
Thank you!
Your electrician should be able to break that all down for you and he will probably know something about your house.
Is your house on slab? Pier & beam with crawlspace? Single Story house?
Do you know if you have any room for another circuit at the main panel?
I wonder why you are asking all these non-Electricians a technical question when you just said "my Electrician". Do you not believe or trust your Electrician?
Let me advise you to trust what he says. If he is wrong then the Building Code Official will let you know. Is the Electrician just doing this without a permit or are you doing this on the books? Why are you trying to cut a corner with the wiring.....how much more can it cost to do it right? What is that 20A going to that you are diverting from it?
I am not an electrician, but it is kind of a hobby with me. I am not entriely clear on what you want to do and what you have to work with.
You said that you have a dedicated 20 amp circuit and another 20 amp circuit that is non dedicated but not fully loaded. First, you need to confirm that the non-dedicated circuit is really a 20 amp circuit. Unless your house is custom, it is unlikely that you have 20 amp circuits for the bedroom. Just because there are 20 Amp breakers in the box, does not mean that you have wiring and outlets capable of safely handling 20 amps. You may want to check the wiring and make sure that it is 12-2 (yellow sleeved) and not 14-2 (white sleeved). If you have 14-2 wire (which is normal), you should have 15 amp breakers and outlets.
It appears that you are planning to create a gfci circuit (using a GFCI breaker) rather than just using a GFCI outlet Why do you want a 15 amp gfci breaker on a dedicated circuit? GFCI breakers cost a lot more than GFCI outlets. The advantage of a GFCI breaker is that you can protect a lot of circuits without changing the wiring to run them all through a GFCI outlet. If you have a dedicated circuit, I would use a GFCI outlet. That way, it it gets tripped, you do not have to run to your breaker box to reset it. It is a lot cheaper too.
Do you know that 15 amps is enough for your air bath? If you are relocating a 20 amp dedicated circuit, why not use a 20 amp gfci?
As to your question, there are more quesitons that need to be clarified. Is there an outlet existing where you want to plug in the air bath or are you putting in a new outlet? If you are putting in a new outlet, you will have to cut walls open to run the wire, unless you can get it into the attic and then tie into a junction box up there. The cost of cutting, patching, and repainting, etc the wall will probably be more than the cost of wiring.
It is my understanding that you have a 20 amp dedicated circuit in your room, and you basically want to relocate that dedicated circuit and then tie the formerly dedicated outlet into an existing circuit. This is probably very easy to do.
Can you identify in the junction box which wire runs from any given breaker and to each load location?
Here is what I would do assuming that you can access the top of the wall where you want the outlet fromt he attic and that there is not plumbing in that wall that you might hit with a drill: Turn off the power, triple check that there is no power to the wires that you are changing. Open the junction box. Check to make certain that there are no live wires in the junctio box. If the dedicted line idoes nto pass throught he junction box (it probably does nto), then check ot make sure it is not live. Find and cut the wire to the dedicated circuit, mark each end of the cut. This wire may not pass through the junction box and you may have to put in a new junction box at the cut. Make certain that the junction box is accessible and complies with code requriements. Find the supply line for the non-dedicated circuit. (You may have to create some tie ins so that you do not overload the wire nut's capacity when putting the additional outlet onto the existing circuit). Tie the existing outlet into the existing non-dedicated circuit. If you cannot simply move the wire to the existing junction box, you will need to link from one junction box to the other.
Cut the hole for the new outlet. Drill through the fire stops down from the attic to the hole using an electrician's drill bit. Pull a new wire up to the attic from the hole using the drill bit as a fish tape. Route the new wire to the junction box and staple it in place according to code. Tie the wire for the new outlet into the cut supply side of the former dedicated circuit. Instal the new outlet box and a GFCI outlet. Turn the power back on and test everything. Turn the power off and seal up the Junction box. Tuen the power back on and test everything again. If the new outlet is reasoably easy to instal and the juction box is accessible and the wires are labled, it would take me a Saturday morning (probably 4-5 hours) to do that. It may take another day to clean up and match if necessary. That is assuming that the new wire can easily be run up to the attic and assuming that I can find all of my tools without searching for an hour or more for anything.
I am assuming tha you are considering doing it yourself. Unless there are problems, this is simple. It is something that you can do yourself after reading a decent book on wiring and browsing through the code.
As far as not trusting you electrician, I do not blame you. Some are good, some are terrible. some of them know so little, it is scary. Others are extremely knowlegable. The one we initially hired was an idiot. I had to look stuff up and tell him how it needed to be done. He disappeared after a few days and i finished much of the wiring. His work had a stack of correction notices, mine had one. It is not hard to read the code and follow it.
Just a point of clarification - Romex was only recently color coded, and there is lots of white Romex out there that is 12 gauge.
Good catch. If you go back even further, it is brown or black. Still I do not think that they used 12ga for normal wiring in production houses in the past 20 years. I used 12 for all the outlets on our house. The minor price difference just did nto seem worth the risk of wishing that I had gone bigger. Too big does nto hurt anything. Too small and you may have to rip it out and repalce it (or watch your house burn down).
Thanks for the response...as I figured it should be an easy job. The house has a 225amp main panel with subpanels for the heatpump and water heater. All all breakers are 20amp in the main panel, and all spaces are used. It is a tract home, but I paid the electrical contractor to do custom electrical work throughout the house. Thats why I have 225amp main panel, whole house surge tied into the main panel, and 20amp breakers.
I talked to the bathtub manufacturer and they recommend a 15amp GFCI as compared to 20amp GFCI. Manufacturer stated the pump is designed for a 15amp breaker...if it overheats a 20amp breaker might not trip properly.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,774,074 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by joe123456
Thanks for the response...as I figured it should be an easy job. The house has a 225amp main panel with subpanels for the heatpump and water heater. All all breakers are 20amp in the main panel, and all spaces are used. It is a tract home, but I paid the electrical contractor to do custom electrical work throughout the house. Thats why I have 225amp main panel, whole house surge tied into the main panel, and 20amp breakers.
I talked to the bathtub manufacturer and they recommend a 15amp GFCI as compared to 20amp GFCI. Manufacturer stated the pump is designed for a 15amp breaker...if it overheats a 20amp breaker might not trip properly.
So every circuit for outlets and lights in your house is 20 A?
If you pull the wire to your entertainment center, fish it into the bathroom and install a GFI rated for 15 A you will need to change out the 20 A breaker for a 15 A breaker at the panel as well. Just changing out the GFI outlets doesn't do anything except give you an outlet that is rated for current less than the breaker and the wiring. You're probably right, though; it should be a reasonably simple operation.
Location: Visitation between Wal-Mart & Home Depot
8,309 posts, read 38,774,074 times
Reputation: 7185
Quote:
Originally Posted by joe123456
I went to the breaker box and yes there are no 15amp breakers. All breakers are 20amp
Wow. I thought you would have a bigger breaker in there for A/C or some heating element. Do all of your outlets have that little notch on the left vertical slot?
It seems to me that there are some household appliances that could fry themselves that way without ever tripping the breaker.
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