Kitchen Remodeling

[williebike]

Hello gangs,
I am undergoing a remodeling project in my home in Sioux FAlls, SD. First of all, the house is almost 60 years old. I tried to isolate the wires (outlets and lighting).

the single circuit lighting for the kitchen is connected for several rooms (kitchen, dining room, hallway, bathroom, and one bedroom) The wires are buried in the attic, what would you recommend me to do? I do not want to rewire the bathroom, hallway, and the bedroom. I am going to rewire the kitchen with completely new wires, but do not want to mess around with the existing rooms.

The same goes for outlet are shared for several rooms.

Hope I said it clear enough for some help.

Thanks, Willie

[mrcaptainbob]

Separating the kitchen from the rest of the house is a very good plan. Today's kitchen appliances take so very much more load than that of 60 years ago! I don't believe there's such a thing as too many circuits in a kitchen! Microwave's, refrigerator's, dishwasher's, disposal's, should each have their own circuit breaker. Then the outlets for toasters, mixers etc. should all be separate from the lighting circuit, too. WHEW! THere's a few miles of wire in all that! You'll have one of two things to do: if the power goes to the kitchen first, then to the other places, you'll need to find the wire from panel-to-kitchen and snip that....find the wire from kitchen-to-other-places and snip that....then splice from panel-to-other-places. This effectively removes your kitchen from any power. Now you can start adding in all those extra circuits and miles of wire. IF (however), it comes the opposite way (from other-places to kitchen) you simply separate that wire from 'other-places' and your kitchen is now free to work in.

Trip the circuit breaker for the kitchen and 'other-places' before any 'snipping'...
BUT!!!! make sure! Never assume all the plugs will be dead. Verify **EACH** outlet with a circuit tester even after you tripped the breaker! There's no tellin' who may have 'changed' things in the past 60 years to present you with a sparkling surprise!!![xx(]

[williebike]

I figured out my problem, i had to replace my circuit tester, the battery was low.

My next question, is how high should I install the countertop GFI outlets?

Many thanks.

[irregularjoe]

Center them 9.5 inches above the finished counter.

Did you ever see OHM'S mother in LAW?...... SHOCKING!