Residential NEC Requirements for Garage

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George Stolz

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Staff member
Location
Windsor, CO NEC: 2017
Occupation
Service Manager
Guypowerup. I think the inspector meant to say "Laundry Must Have Designated Circuit."

210.10(C)(2) ... This circuit shall have no other outlets.

Your circuit, even though it has a shared neutral and fed by a double pole circuit breaker, is still one branch circuit.

If we look carefully at the wording of 210.4, it says A multiwire circuit shall be permitted to be considered as multiple circuits. I agree that technically this is no different than running a 12-3 w ground to the kitchen and calling it two circuits.
I'm not following that reasoning at all. If what you're hinting at were a valid read of the code, then I wouldn't be allowed to run a single 12-3 to the kitchen counters and call it a day, because I would have only "one circuit."

I think the wording of 210.4 speaks for itself: A multiwire circuit shall be permitted to be considered as multiple circuits. There's no two ways to read that, we have explicit permission to deal with the two lines as as pair of circuits.

But think about what we are doing when we run such a circuit to the kitchen. We are using the entire circuit for the electrical load in the kitchen, not for other rooms.
Purely design preference. In most commercial applications, where MWBC is most common, what room the lines of a MWBC end up in is usually about #32 on the designer's priority list, IMO.

Three points for trying, but I don't see the inspector wiggling out from this one. :)

Most likely the 12-wire looked like a pair of 12-2's, and the inspector was unaware that there were two circuits present.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
Sorry Taylor, not trying to gang up on ya. Dennis and I happened to get interested in the same thing at about the same time. :D

Interesting with the 2 hour difference in our time zones we both pick the same thread and same poster to question with similar points. George- go back to bed...:D It too early.
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Write down WWW.Mikeholt.com on a piece of paper, ask them to open "Code Forum" they can visit as a guest and ask them to find a thread named, "residential requirements for garage"

"Search", as I recall does not work as a guest, but I believe all other features work.
OK it's been a while since I logged in as a guest.

JMO... : )
 

Jim W in Tampa

Senior Member
Location
Tampa Florida
If the inspector has issues of shared neutrals then we have major problems because every 120 volt circuit in that house is shareing a neutral. What does he think that triplex is running to your house.
A 12-3 is 2 circuits. Yes both will trip because of breaker being a 2 pole. Now tell me why thats such a huge problem ?

Things like this come up far too often. Seems the requirements are too low in some areas to be an inspector. As an EC you should not be assigned the job of teaching them the code at your cost.

Is a way to get rid of his type or change him. Call him on each and every tag that he does not write the code number for and get your fellow electricians to do the same. In short become as big of a pain to him as you can be and perhaps he will find a job he is qualified for. Mc Donalds is hiring.
 
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