Adding receptacles in a dining room 210.52(B)

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tortuga

Code Historian
Location
Oregon
Occupation
Electrical Design
Were adding two receptacles one in a dining room and one in a bedroom its a a older residence. A new run to the panel will be used. Question I got was can the new home run serve both receptacles? The existing spacing does not meet the current 210.52(A). My thought is each receptacle would need to be on its own run as 210.52(B) requires dining room outlets to be exclusively on one or more small appliance branch circuits. Thoughts?
 

charlie b

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Lockport, IL
Occupation
Retired Electrical Engineer
I agree with Tortuga's opinion. The DR outlet needs to be on a SABC, and such circuits cannot serve "other outlets." Put another way, when you run a 20 amp circuit to the DR outlet, that circuit BECOMES a SABC. It is at that point that the circuit becomes forbidden to serve other outlets.
 

PaulMmn

Senior Member
Location
Union, KY, USA
Occupation
EIT - Engineer in Training, Lafayette College
What's the logic behind requiring a DR to be on a SABC? Because it needs to be a 20A circuit? Gotta keep those warming trays and crock pots running!
 

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
What's the logic behind requiring a DR to be on a SABC? Because it needs to be a 20A circuit? Gotta keep those warming trays and crock pots running!

Dates back to the 40's and 50's when such things were used in dining rooms. I never saw it and my parent's and anybody else I knew ever did anything like that either. Probably time for the NEC to get with the times and do away with that requirement.

Buuut, not too long ago, I had a party and set up a buffet table in my living room adjacent to my dining room. Would have been nice to have capacity there for the big coffee maker and food warmer. Thought about adding a few dedicated 20A circuits and receptacles but how often will I need them? Next party was outside.

-Hal
 

PaulMmn

Senior Member
Location
Union, KY, USA
Occupation
EIT - Engineer in Training, Lafayette College
Dates back to the 40's and 50's when such things were used in dining rooms. I never saw it and my parent's and anybody else I knew ever did anything like that either. Probably time for the NEC to get with the times and do away with that requirement.

Buuut, not too long ago, I had a party and set up a buffet table in my living room adjacent to my dining room. Would have been nice to have capacity there for the big coffee maker and food warmer. Thought about adding a few dedicated 20A circuits and receptacles but how often will I need them? Next party was outside.

-Hal

There's always the outside party that gets rained on, and everyone moves everything inside... And where else will you plug in the train set at Christmas??

"If you build them, they will come!"
 

mopowr steve

Senior Member
Location
NW Ohio
Occupation
Electrical contractor
Dates back to the 40's and 50's when such things were used in dining rooms. I never saw it and my parent's and anybody else I knew ever did anything like that either. Probably time for the NEC to get with the times and do away with that requirement.

-Hal

:thumbsup::happyyes:
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
I agree with Tortuga's opinion. The DR outlet needs to be on a SABC, and such circuits cannot serve "other outlets." Put another way, when you run a 20 amp circuit to the DR outlet, that circuit BECOMES a SABC. It is at that point that the circuit becomes forbidden to serve other outlets.

DR receptacles must be on SABC's but there is no requirement they be individual circuits. Every dwelling needs a minimum of two SABC's but you can connect all the kitchen, pantry, breakfast room, dining room, or similar area receptacles to those two (or more) SABC's. By running an additional circuit to the DR you have introduced another SABC, but nothing says it can't also supply receptacles in the other rooms mentioned in 210.52(B)(1). The no other outlets in (2) Means no outlets in places not mentioned in (1) other than what is mentioned in the exceptions.
 

hbiss

EC, Westchester, New York NEC: 2014
Location
Hawthorne, New York NEC: 2014
Occupation
EC
DR receptacles must be on SABC's but there is no requirement they be individual circuits. Every dwelling needs a minimum of two SABC's but you can connect all the kitchen, pantry, breakfast room, dining room, or similar area receptacles to those two (or more) SABC's. By running an additional circuit to the DR you have introduced another SABC, but nothing says it can't also supply receptacles in the other rooms mentioned in 210.52(B)(1). The no other outlets in (2) Means no outlets in places not mentioned in (1) other than what is mentioned in the exceptions.

We are always complaining about the two required 20A counter top SABCs not being enough. It's even been suggested making each countertop receptacle a dedicated 20A circuit. Granted, the dining room receptacles will probably never be be used to capacity, but to add them, whatever their load, to the countertop SABCs is counter intuitive. I would rather install at least two dedicated SABCs serving only the countertops then additional circuits as necessary for everything else.

-Hal
 

Eddie702

Licensed Electrician
Location
Western Massachusetts
Occupation
Electrician
2 SABC is the MINIMUM code requirement. You can have as many SABC as you want but they must be 20 amp circuits, receptacles can be 15a or 20a as long as the circuit using 15a receptacles has more than 1 receptacle

If you run more than 2 SABC into the kitchen/dining area they are still considered SABC and must be 20 amp and must only supply the dining room & kitchen...nothing else except a clock outlet.

You can't feed other rooms off an SABC. With the two circuit minimum both circuits must exist in both rooms (dining & Kitchen)

At least thats the way I read it.

I have seen in many older homes I find that the cloths washer was frequently found to be on one of the SABC circuits. This was in 1950s & early 60s homes. Don't have any code books back that far.....just wondering.
 

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
We are always complaining about the two required 20A counter top SABCs not being enough. It's even been suggested making each countertop receptacle a dedicated 20A circuit. Granted, the dining room receptacles will probably never be be used to capacity, but to add them, whatever their load, to the countertop SABCs is counter intuitive. I would rather install at least two dedicated SABCs serving only the countertops then additional circuits as necessary for everything else.

-Hal

If it is not enough there is no prohibition to running an unlimited number SABC's to those rooms, just remember for load calculations you need 1500 VA for every SABC but must have a minimum of two SABC's. Beyond two is totally a design issue and NEC has no business in trying to require more than that.

I have seen many cases where two SABC's is sufficient and no complaints about overloading circuits. If occupant likes to do a lot of entertaining and use the kitchen for food prep for those events you may need more circuits than some places can get away with.

Dining room at my house never has anything food related plugged into receptacles in there. I think they are on their own circuit, but is a wasted circuit (as far as being separate from other outlets) in some ways. About all that is in there is two lamps on a hutch with maybe ~10 watt led lamps in them, not sure if a 20 amp circuit can handle that or not.
 
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