Tweet
I have a circuit which runs 3 kitchen plugs, an outside GFI plug, a porch light, and a ceiling fan in the dining room. I wanted to add an overhead light for my kitchen (which didn't have a light). There are two circuits in the older part of the house which power a few more lights and receptacles than I'm confortable with, so for now I added the light with fewer things on it. I found several interesting things while doing this project (such as it must have been wired before the days of 4 conductor wire, as the 3way switch on my dining room ceiling fan was wired VERY strangely, getting power from 2 different circuits)... Needless to say, I completely rewired the ceiling fan, and did everything with #12 wire, since I noticed I was adding the kitchen light to a circuit that was 20amp. When I was all ready to reconnect things at the switch by the back door, I noticed that the feed wire for this end part of the circuit was only #14! The plugs on this circuit are VERY lightly used (a radio and our answering machine is the typical usage), so I'm not really concerned about overload, but I did immediately replace the breaker with a 15amp breaker. The plugs in the kitchen (which are first on the circuit) are all #12, and all the lights are powered with #12, but the feed wire going from the last plug to the lights is #14. Was I correct in changing the breaker? Seems to me that if there is #14 anywhere on a circuit (with the possible exception of a dedicated 14-2 line for a switch for a single light) the breaker powering that circuit should only be 15amp. I'm looking at the options to divide this into 2 circuits, but since it's an outside wall, feeding an additional circuit will be extremely difficult....
-
-
Sounds to me that this was a homeowner installation project. From when I began electrical wiring it was firmly drilled into my head NOT to mix wires. 12 does not go onto a 14 ga circuit for the express reason you ran into. Say that 12 ga line was at the panel and had a 15 amp breaker attached. Downstream of the 12 somebody added another circuit that was 14 ga. Say the line kept on blowing the breaker. So seeing the 12 one would assume that it was ok to change out the breaker but upon changing it out that portion of the house wired with 14 burned. See my point? never mix wires. About the only way to get around this is something called the 10 foot and 20 foot tap rule, but the cables are protected by an appropriate fuse or breaker. "Good man!" I'm glad you changed the breaker! -
OK, good. I thought I was doing the right thing here by swapping out the breaker. I saved the 20 amp breaker, as plan to "split" a couple of older circuits in my house into two seperate feeds from the breaker (all with 12 ga. of course!). I wish there was a way to replace that one pieec of 14ga. wire (what was he THINKING?!?), but where it occurs in the kitchen, it would be very messy. Possible, but very messy. I think when I go to replace my cabinets, I'll take that opportunity to go into the wall and fix this little problem.
Thanks for the affirmation!Comment
Comment