And we worked so hard, too.
I don't think Bob from the NKAPC even looked at the jbox wiring or the connections, which is where I figured they'd be focusing on. Noooo. We lost it on NOT HAVING ENOUGH OUTLETS.
Apparently we missed that part where any wall that is 6 foot or greater must have an outlet. So the wall that covers over the fireplace in the kitchen (which isn't 6" but was close, and is 42" away from the island, which will have 2 outlets) needs one. And the knee wall on the second floor stairs in the office. And the fireplace in the office. And the third floor? Three more. (Two in areas that may never be even reached).
The breaker boxes were replaced and look GREAT if I do say so myself. I thought that would be the most excruciating part of the inspection. After all, it was the hardest. (For me anyway.)
I mentioned before that we wanted to move them from the basement (where they were split into two boxes for the two apartments in the house) into the first floor dining room. Here's where we started:
And here is what we ended up with. I think we should've scored points just for cleaning the darned thing up, y'know?
But that wasn't all. Noooo. There's this code that says we can't just ground the house by connecting the grounds to the copper plumbing pipe and the 10' copper rod embedded under the basement. No, we need a SECOND 10' copper rod embedded into the foundation six feet away from the first one. Sheesh.
The guy gave us our NKAPC sheet with the list of needed outlets and the grounding rod, then checked the part where it said did not pass, needs re-inspection. He also checked the part where we now need to pay a re-inspection fee. I think it's like $30-$50
So it'll take another day to order the NEW (6%$#@*&) copper grounding pipe and dig a hole into the foundation, and run new wires for the six *^&%$#@&^%$* outlets that will never be used, but just in case someone 30 years down the road wants to plug in a vacuum cleaner in a crawl space in the third floor attic, they'll be able to.
Moo. I'm the new cash cow.
4 comments:
Every wall of every room? I knew about nothing more than 6' from an outlet (i.e., so you don't have to use an extension cord to plug in something pretty much anywhere), but I'm hadn't heard about every wall of every room.
In any event, you have my condolences. A pain in the butt to have to re-do work and get a 2nd inspection.
I think any wall more than 6' must have an outlet. Rules are different for kitchens, too.
The thing is, the spaces we have to add outlets to are either well covered, or virtually unusable.
For instance, the attic area is just a landing at the top of the stairs and a storage space. We made access to the window so you can open it. Now we have to add two outlets there. We can reach that with the hose from the central vac. Since you can't even stand up straight, I'm not sure what the point is. Then we have to add one into what is essentially a hall, even though there's one on the other side of the door, one 11 feet away, and TONS of plugs all over in the usable areas. We BELIEVE in overkill. We like it. But silly is silly. The office is another. We've got double the plugs necessary on two and 1/2 walls. We now have to put one on the knee wall at the stairs and in the chimney. Again, there's a central vac right there, too.
The kitchen is also overkill, and utterly unnecessary, BUT we wanted one there anyway, as we got to thinking it might be very cool to have a flat screen TV on that wall. No complaints there.
That second rod thing in the basement is kind weird. I was told it was OK to link it basically in series. I'm having trouble understanding the benefit of that. But I'm not a professional.
None of this stuff is the end of the world, but DW and I are careful and thoughtful and we never fail at ANYTHING. I'm calling in some help to make sure we get it right and then I'll call for another inspection.
We're moving fast, but we need to move faster.
Thanks for the love, Gene.
Kitchens are weird, with 2 separate circuits for outlets required, plus for the disposal, plus the 240V for a stove. Bathrooms are a bit weird, too (separate from the GFCI requirement), from what I can remember, too.
But I'll have to look into the every wall thing more closely before my next inspection. I purposefully kept outlets off of one wall in the dining room because there will be others near by, and since it's an outside wall, there'd be a lower R-value behind the outlets. But if they're required...
We have the island one breaker, the small appliance 20amp on another, and GFI all around. We even built in two extra outlets at the TOP of the cabinet rows, one one each end of the wall. Seriously, we thought we had more than enough. I even wired my kitchen cubby with 2 outlets, a phone and a CAT 5.
Who knew?
Also, the stove isn't a 240V as we only need electric for a starter. It's a gas stove :-)
We'll muddle, but time's a ticking... Thanks for your kind words, Gene.
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