Top Tips

Perhaps the biggest tip I can offer is to plan for plenty of circuits. The cost of a 40 circuit panel vs. a 30 circuit panel is peanuts. Two hundred fifty feet of 12 / 2 cable with ground is peanuts. Anticipate what the load for a circuit might be and if in doubt, simply add another circuit to a room addition or house. Heck, add two more! Consider using 12/2 wire as your minimum wire size. I did that in my own home after years of frustration working at other people's homes. I could notice a voltage drop at some houses when I used my power tools. I quickly learned that I was at the end of a long stretch of 14 gauge wire. Fourteen gauge wire supports 15 amps or 1,800 watts. But 12 gauge wire is rated for 20 amps or 2,400 watts. That is a significant difference. Plan for big tools in your garage or workshop. If you have a table saw, it should have its own circuit. Those motors can draw lots of juice on startup and when a thick board is being cut with a semi-dull blade! Get the right tools. When working with residential electric, I use a linesman's pliers, a razor knife, a wire stripping tool and several different screwdrivers. I also have a needle nose pliers. The linesman's pliers are great for cutting cable and twisting wires together. The razor knife strips insulation from the cable and the wire stripping tool strips wire insulation in one stroke. The needle nose pliers is used to bend individual wires around outlet and switch terminal screws. Install wiring after the plumbing and heating is done but before low voltage wiring is run. Never have wiring in the way before a plumber arrives. The heat from soldering torches has melted the insulation on many a cable or wire, trust me! Adding wiring in older homes can be a challenge. It can be especially difficult to get wires from one floor to the next. Older homes that have cast iron drain lines sometimes offer a convenient pathway. It was not uncommon for the plumbers to create oversize holes in the floors and wall plates to accommodate their pipes as they traveled from the different floors to the roof.