Bedroom outlet circuits

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jeff48356

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Livonia, Michigan
In a 4-bedroom colonial house with all 4 bedrooms on the second floor, do the receptacle outlets in the master bedroom need to be on their own circuit, or can I include those from the adjacent bedroom on the same circuit. No other loads will be on it. I would wire a separate circuit to power the outlets in the third and fourth bedrooms.
 
This is one of those design issues. Master and small other room would be a choice. Especially with all ceiling lighting on a third circuit.
 
You probably could put all 4 rooms on one circuit but I would never do that. Other than 3 watts / sq.ft, I am not sure there is any code that would state how many receptacles or rooms can be on a circuit in a residence.

Some will argue the 3 watts/sq.ft and say that is only for calculating service load.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
You probably could put all 4 rooms on one circuit but I would never do that. Other than 3 watts / sq.ft, I am not sure there is any code that would state how many receptacles or rooms can be on a circuit in a residence.

Some will argue the 3 watts/sq.ft and say that is only for calculating service load.
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The Code only states what cannot be on such a circuit (SABC, laundry, bath etc.).
 
jeff48356 said:
In a 4-bedroom colonial house with all 4 bedrooms on the second floor, do the receptacle outlets in the master bedroom need to be on their own circuit, or can I include those from the adjacent bedroom on the same circuit.
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Dennis Alwon said:
You probably could put all 4 rooms on one circuit but I would never do that. Other than 3 watts / sq.ft, I am not sure there is any code that would state how many receptacles or rooms can be on a circuit in a residence.

Some will argue the 3 watts/sq.ft and say that is only for calculating service load.
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Jeff, Dennis is pointing at the answer to your question. Remembering that the NEC is a "minimum standard" and that this "minimum", by the Code's own statement may not be practical, the General Lighting Load of 3 Watts per square foot leads to the following:

A 15 Amp 120 Volt Branch Circuit "lets through" 1800 Watts. 1800 Watts divided by 3 Watts per square foot equals 600 square feet. That 600 square feet of the house that you are wiring is determined from the dimensions from the outside of the walls.

So, to answer your question Jeff, if the Master Bed is 700 square feet your answer is different than if all four Bedrooms together are equal to or less than 600 square feet. For the Code minimum. . . that is.
 
al hildenbrand said:
Jeff, Dennis is pointing at the answer to your question. Remembering that the NEC is a "minimum standard" and that this "minimum", by the Code's own statement may not be practical, the General Lighting Load of 3 Watts per square foot leads to the following:

A 15 Amp 120 Volt Branch Circuit "lets through" 1800 Watts. 1800 Watts divided by 3 Watts per square foot equals 600 square feet. That 600 square feet of the house that you are wiring is determined from the dimensions from the outside of the walls.

So, to answer your question Jeff, if the Master Bed is 700 square feet your answer is different than if all four Bedrooms together are equal to or less than 600 square feet. For the Code minimum. . . that is.
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As Dennis mentioned, isn't that sq. ft. minimum for calculating service load? Is there any maximum number of receptacles permitted on a circuit? As long as there are receptacles at the required location and spaced per code, does NEC care how many circuits power them?
 
Craigv said:
As Dennis mentioned, isn't that sq. ft. minimum for calculating service load?
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3 W/sq. ft. is used as part of calculating minimum service load for a specific Dwelling.
600 sq. ft. is from arbitrarily choosing the size of the General Lighting Branch Circuit overcurrent protective device and dividing it into the total General Lighting Load for a specific dwelling to determine the minimum number of branch circuits.

Craigv said:
Is there any maximum number of receptacles permitted on a circuit?
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In a Dwelling for a General Lighting Branch Circuit, no.

Craigv said:
As long as there are receptacles at the required location and spaced per code, does NEC care how many circuits power them?
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In a Dwelling for receptacles on a General Lighting Branch Circuit, no, as long as the number equals or exceeds the required minimum.
 
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Craigv said:
As Dennis mentioned, isn't that sq. ft. minimum for calculating service load? Is there any maximum number of receptacles permitted on a circuit? As long as there are receptacles at the required location and spaced per code, does NEC care how many circuits power them?
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According to NEC and the UK BS 7671, in residential at least, no.
however, in Jamaica, the rule of thumb is 1800 Watts / 15 amps on fifteen amp breaker, 2400 Watts / 20 amps on 20 amp circuit
and only three outlets per circuit on kitchen, bathroom, or outside circuits with gfci.
 
Which brings us back to this being a matter of design choice rather than a specific code requirement. We must follow the general rules for location and spacing, but we can put as few or many receptacles per circuit as we desire in bedrooms. I don't advocate pushing this to unreasonable limits, and tend to be very conservative with circuit loading. But code would allow it.
 
I am with those that say 3VA per square foot is only for service/feeder calculations.

That 3 VA per square foot includes general lighting and general receptacles. How do you divide it up if you ran a 15 amp circuit that primarily does lighting only, and a 20 amp circuit or two that does receptacles only? The most you can do is say you have X amount of square feet and therefore must have at least Y number of branch circuits, but if you needed 3 branch circuits nothing really stops you from putting in two circuits that only supply individual outlets and the rest all on one circuit either.

Circuit killers in such rooms are portable heaters or room air conditioners. If you are not going to have any of those - you can easily get away with 3 or 4 bedrooms entirely on one branch circuit and seldom have breakers trip from too much load.
 
Kwired you are describing your design. That has nothing to do with the NEC minimum in the OP's question.
Tapatalk
 
Allow me: The master bedroom need not be supplied by a separate circuit.


Added: I prefer using 20a circuits for receptacles, even in bedrooms, and placing ceiling lights and fans on separate 15a circuits. One reason is that all lights are likely to be turned on when vacuuming, and I've had more calls for this causing bedroom-circuit outages in newer homes than any other causes, portable heaters being a close second in older homes.
 
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kwired said:
I am with those that say 3VA per square foot is only for service/feeder calculations.
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Look at the title of Part II- Branch-Circuit Load Calculations

So I am not sure why you say it has nothing to do with the BC. Many used to say the same about the ranges for a dwelling. But it is clear in the notes to the table that you can use it for branch circuits also.
 
Dennis, I believe he's saying that the 3w/sq.ft. is a calculation allowance, as opposed to an actual installation rule, and I agree. We've had the discussion before; there are those who use that allowance, as well as the 1800va/receptacle allowance, as the basis for a receptacles-per-circuit limitation.
 
al hildenbrand said:
Kwired you are describing your design. That has nothing to do with the NEC minimum in the OP's question.
Tapatalk
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Maybe describing my design to some extent, but can you say it is or is not code compliant?

Can I put 3 10 x 10 bedrooms on one 15 amp circuit, lights and receptacles? Can I put 3 15 x 12 bedrooms all on one 15 amp circuit?

How about 6 of the 10 x 10 rooms on one 15 amp circuit- still comes out to 1800 VA when you figure 3 watts per square foot. Many will say that is too many rooms or even too many outlets on a 15 amp circuit. Reality is unless you put electric space heaters or portable air conditioners in any of those rooms you probably can use one circuit in most cases and never have any troubles.

What if you put a receptacle every 4 feet of wall instead of getting somewhat minimal on the 6-12 rule, yet the user of that room still plugs in the same items either way, just that they may not have needed an extension/adapter/power strip for the first method but maybe did use at least one for the second method.

Bottom line many feel there is no maximum number of receptacles per circuit requirement for dwellings - for general use outlets supplying undetermined loads anyway.
 
kwired said:
Maybe describing my design to some extent, but can you say it is or is not code compliant?

Can I put 3 10 x 10 bedrooms on one 15 amp circuit, lights and receptacles? Can I put 3 15 x 12 bedrooms all on one 15 amp circuit?

How about 6 of the 10 x 10 rooms on one 15 amp circuit- still comes out to 1800 VA when you figure 3 watts per square foot. Many will say that is too many rooms or even too many outlets on a 15 amp circuit. Reality is unless you put electric space heaters or portable air conditioners in any of those rooms you probably can use one circuit in most cases and never have any troubles.

What if you put a receptacle every 4 feet of wall instead of getting somewhat minimal on the 6-12 rule, yet the user of that room still plugs in the same items either way, just that they may not have needed an extension/adapter/power strip for the first method but maybe did use at least one for the second method.

Bottom line many feel there is no maximum number of receptacles per circuit requirement for dwellings - for general use outlets supplying undetermined loads anyway.
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And they would be correct.
The British code actually tells you this. Although they have different rules for the two Radial circuits they use for outlets compared to the Ring circuit that they use normally for outlets, in both cases the rules say there is no limit to the number of outlets on the circuit breaker, but only address the number of outlets on any Spurs. The difference on Spurs is whether the spur is fused or not....
But, I have yet to see any NEC your even International Electrical Code regulations on outlets concerning the number on a general use circuit. And I have over thirty years of reading codes....
I don’t even think there is a number of lights on a circuit listed, only that you use 100 watts for each light point when designing your home, even though your normal lights now use way less than 100 Watts.
 
Adamjamma said:
And they would be correct.
The British code actually tells you this. Although they have different rules for the two Radial circuits they use for outlets compared to the Ring circuit that they use normally for outlets, in both cases the rules say there is no limit to the number of outlets on the circuit breaker, but only address the number of outlets on any Spurs. The difference on Spurs is whether the spur is fused or not....
But, I have yet to see any NEC your even International Electrical Code regulations on outlets concerning the number on a general use circuit. And I have over thirty years of reading codes....
I don’t even think there is a number of lights on a circuit listed, only that you use 100 watts for each light point when designing your home, even though your normal lights now use way less than 100 Watts.
Click to expand...

That may be some people's design method, is not something from NEC.
 
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