Residential offices

K

Kev457

Member
Location
Winston Salem NC
Occupation
Electrician
Do residential “offices” have to be wired in 12? I am wiring a house and per the county it can only have 4 bedrooms, so they labeled 3 other rooms office 1, 2, and 3. Wasn’t sure if there was a code on residential office areas.
 
By "wired in 12" do you mean #12 AWG conductors? There is no NEC requirement to wire a home office with #12 wire unless you're using 20 amp branch circuits.
 
The bedroom limit seems strange. Are the offices going to end up being used as bedrooms? Do they have a secondary means of egress (window or door), closet and smoke alarms?
 
curt swartz said:
The bedroom limit seems strange. Are the offices going to end up being used as bedrooms? Do they have a secondary means of egress (window or door), closet and smoke alarms?
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At one time, the building code didn't have a closet as a requirement for a bedroom. I don't know if that is still true.
Smoke alarm and egress, definitely.

Ron
 
curt swartz said:
The bedroom limit seems strange. Are the offices going to end up being used as bedrooms? Do they have a secondary means of egress (window or door), closet and smoke alarms?
Click to expand...
So you can only have so many bedrooms for your septic field. The land perc said they can have 4. They are going to use the “offices” as bedrooms. They have closets and smoke detectors.
 
Many think all commercial spaces need to be wired in #12 and if conduit is used that it has to be 3/4" minimum. This may be a job spec requirement but is not a NEC Code requirement. One electrician I worked with was astounded to find this out and swore I was wrong.

Of course this thread is residential but the same thing applies
 
Kev457 said:
So you can only have so many bedrooms for your septic field. The land perc said they can have 4.
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That makes no sense! "What if" the family had 12 members? Pack them into the 4 bedrooms and that wouldn't strain the septic system?
I understand what you're saying as I'm on a septic system.
It's still bull pucky to me!

Ron
 
rc/retired said:
At one time, the building code didn't have a closet as a requirement for a bedroom. I don't know if that is still true.
Smoke alarm and egress, definitely.

Ron
Click to expand...
From past experience it not so much requiring a closet in a bedroom but if the field inspector sees a room with a closet and secondary means of egress they are going to ask for a smoke alarm.
 
Kev457 said:
So you can only have so many bedrooms for your septic field. The land perc said they can have 4. They are going to use the “offices” as bedrooms. They have closets and smoke detectors.
Click to expand...
That makes sense but what doesn't make sense is that if the septic system design can only support the general usage of 4 bedrooms then why would someone use 7 bedrooms on that system?
 
rc/retired said:
That makes no sense! "What if" the family had 12 members? Pack them into the 4 bedrooms and that wouldn't strain the septic system?
I understand what you're saying as I'm on a septic system.
It's still bull pucky to me!

Ron
Click to expand...

In practice, number of bedrooms has been a more accurate metric for determining septic loading. Reality is, it’s a great deal of guess work, and we try to get as accurate as we can, but no one can predict the future or engineer someone’s private life.

Perc tests are wildly conservative, and personal usage habits can drastically reduce septic loading, so just because it perc testing for 4 bedrooms doesn’t necessarily mean it will fail if you have 5 kids in your house.

One of the best things that can be done, and more and more municipalities are allowing them, are grey water systems.
 
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