Home improvement, PT II - Electricity

[Norton]

Been trying to untangle the mess that the previous owners left with regards to the wiring in the unfinished part of the basement.  I took the residential wiring class at the local community college so I can do all of the basics pretty well, but as with anything the devil is in the details and the mark of the professional is when you don't have a textbook situation.

I spent the day yesterday replacing receptacles in the laundry room which is also on the same circuit as the one other unfinished room in the basement.  The receptacles in the laundry room were easy, so I moved on to the unfinished room to replace a receptacle there.

This receptacle received power from the single pull chain light fixture.  The receptacle then fed a smoke detector in the finished part of the basement.  The light fixture also fed an over head light (separately switched) near the smoke detector.  So there were two wires running 15ft across the room to the other room.

I ran one new cable from the pull chain (1st stop for the power) fixture to a junction box to feed the smoke detector and the switched light fixture (eliminated one of the two cables, the one from the receptacle).  I then ran new wire to the receptacle because the old cable was in bad shape.

This receptacle was not GFCI protected, so I put one in.

I fear fire......so I always double check my work, which I did this morning.

Questions:

1.  Why would the original owner (not the best of workmanship, for sure) have run those two cables to devices only 12" apart?  The receptacle ran 15ft to power the smoke detector and the pull chain fixture ran 15ft to power the other overhead light.  I eliminated a 15 ft run of cable by splicing the 2 devices into one junction box.  A smoke detector pulls minimal amount of power so I don't see a problem.


2.  GFCI circuit breakers are superior to GFCI receptacles, right?    Should I just pull out the GCFI receptacle and wait for the electrician to replace the panel box (upgrading to 200 amps)?  This is directly related to question #3 and my fear of fire......

3.  Do GFCI receptacles produce heat?  I went in there today just to check on things and noticed that the GFCI box was warm.

4.  Should junction boxes EVER feel warm (not hot) to the touch?  Is this a symptom of too small a box?  My connections are all wire-nutted and then taped.  The only thing that gives me pause to worry is that I know that my pliers scratch up the wire ends a bit, but I've been wiring stuff with those pliers for a long time with no problems.

That circuit is switched off at the breaker right now, BTW.

[280plus]

I'm not aware that any box should feel warm unless the electrical load on the wiring or box is too much. I'm assuming you mean what we call GFI (Ground Fault Interrupting) receptacles? I'm not familiar with GFCI ones. If you DO mean GFI they are supposed to interrupt the circuit if they sense a bleed of power to ground most specifically in such cases where YOU have become the reason power is bleeding to ground, meaning you are being shocked. They are so effective that the little breaker will pop before you feel so much as a tingle. They are required in bathrroms around here but no where else in the house IIRC. While I am not an electrician by trade I find it strange that a junction box would be warm unless, again, there is too much load on the wiring. Without being there to actually take a look I strongly recommend you wait for the electrician and leave that circuit off. If there is minimal load on it and things are warm I question what's going on and suggest it needs to be checked out. It sounds like something is crossed up or something is faulty.

[Norton]

GFCI = GFI

We have none in our house as of yet, which is why I was fooling around with this one.  The boxes in the bathroom and kitchen are too small to fit the GFCI which is why I was going to wait for the new panel to be installed and have the GFCI breakers put in.

I switched out the GFCI receptacle and the single box for a standard receptacle and larger box.  Seems to have corrected the problem.

Of course I could have been imagining the whole thing.....I invent problems where there are none.  Guess I'm a home improvement hypochondriac.

We have plumber coming to fix a few things next week, then I guess we get the electrician to come in and give us the bad news with the panel install and safety inspection.

Oh, did i mention that the circuit breaker feeds the two rooms from different ends?  When I disconnect the feed to the unfinished room with the breaker off....all power is off to both rooms.

If I separate the wires and turn the breaker back on, I get power at the feed (with all devices disconnected, mind you) to the unfinished room, but the laundry room is getting power on that circuit from somewhere else on the other side of the house (which is covered in drywall of course)

[Azrael256]

When it is under load, a little bit of warmth isn't anything to worry about (touch the vaccuum cleaner cord after cleaning the house and you'll see), but I am not aware of any proper GFCI receptacle warming up when not under load.  The one in my bathroom is ice cold.

The wiring may have been split off at the light fixture due to code concerns.  I can't address that one specifically, as I don't know what your code standard is, but I'm paranoid enough about smoke detectors that I wouldn't use one fed from 120 anyway.  What if the fire starts in the junction box?  The circuit could be cut, and the detector would just burn up.  Battery power is the way to go for that one.

[Norton]

I pulled the GFCI and put in a standard receptacle.....cool as a cucumber now.

In our class, the teacher said that the smoke detector should be fed from a light or receptacle feed so that you'd know if it (the circuit) wasn't working. If you run the smoke detector on a dedicated circuit, the breaker could trip and you wouldn't necessarily know it.

Code requires smoke detectors to be both 120 and battery, which ours are.  Code also requires all detectors to be interlaced so that if one goes off, they all go off.  Ours aren't, but will be once I get the money to buy some new ones that are wireless interlaced....you just have to power them, but they don't have to be wired together.  If one goes off, it sends radio signal to the others.  Not quite as good as hardwiring, but infinitely easier and cheaper.

I've been here at the house all day monitoring the work I did yesterday.....all looks well.

[280plus]

Very good!

[Leatherneck]

Norton,
Better double-check the NEC; I seem to remember that dedicated circuits are required for bathroom, laundry receptacles, kitchen counter receptacles, and smoke alarms. Could be wrong. It's acceptable to protect a circuit with a GFCI receptacle, since everything "downstraem' of the receptacle is GFCI-protected as well.

TC

[280plus]

So if your in a house like mine where 1/2 the house goes if you use the toaster and microwave at the same time it's probably not so good?

And yes, they did it themselves...

Chances are it'll cost more to redo it than it did to do it right the first time. I try not to think about it.

[Norton]

Leatherneck,

To my feeble knowledge of the NEC, and as imparted by our instructor from class...

Each bathroom is supposed to be on a separate circuit.
Kitchen should have two 20amp circuits for counters

Neither statement above is true for our house.  In fact the same circuit does 2 bathrooms, a bedroom and the hallway.  Not too big of a deal as we don't have much of a load on that circuit....no TV in bedroom, etc.  I would like to have the bedroom put on it's own circuit as I would like to have an arc-fault breaker put in there.

The kitchen and bath both need the GFCI, but I think we'll put them in the breaker bx rather than the receptacles.  The breakers are expensive (around $45) but they last a long time, unlike the receptacles, and don't require putting new boxes in the wall (ours are too small).

Good thread for sharing info here.......thanks everyone for the advice!