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20amp receps and coming off for general bedroom lighting?

Doing a house and this guy is going all out, have general receps w/ 12awg / 20amp. Now I was going to just do the receps w/ 12 and 20 amp arc faults. But the lighting (1 rec can, and fan lt combo, and WIC Lt) needs to be arc fault protected as well because its in the room... correct. So basically can I send 20amp off an arc fault to general Lting? And smoke detectors, those will be in the bedrooms too... so hit them off the 20 amp ARC fault? Thanks

Public Comments

  1. receptacles and lighting should be on different lines. If you wire a smoke detector, let it have it's own cicuit. The most amps pulled are from a hair dryer, vacuum or a fridge. Doubt you will have a fridge in the bedroom, but, it may be nice for chilled wine. You can also go to your local hardware store and they will help. Don't tie in old lines with new, it may cause the old wire to be stressed and get hot. Ground your circuits. Good luck, p.s. turn off the power and don't touch the hot wire.
  2. Remember, volts x amps = watts. to properly size your circuit breaker (amps) determine all of the max wattages will be used and divide by 120v. For a proper safety factor take your answer and multiply by 1.2. This is the size in amps that you should be using. All circuits used are supposed to be protected with circuit breakers per the National Electric Code (assuming you are in the US) Fuse based circuits are still allowed in some local jurisdictions but they are discouraged. Lighting circuits rarely need to be 20 amp, unless you have a fixture with a quartz halogen lamp. In fact, with compact fluorescent and LED fixtures becoming more common, 20 amp lighting circuits will disappear soon and the only 20 amps left will be kitchens (GFCI) and garages and 30 amps 2-pole for AC, washer/dryer, etc
  3. Code says that your smokes must be on their own circuit. If you want to tie into existing detectors so that one will set them all off, 14/3 romex is generaly used. Arc faulting light fixtures should not be required, but many counties are changing to european code, so I'm not sure about this. Just keep in mind that when the house was originally built the electrician should have balanced circuit loads based on the original plans and probably didn't go much beyond that to ensure his bid was competitive. A new circuit from the panel would be reccomended for any additions.
  4. Lots of good answers already. I did want to add that people sometimes use their hair dryers/curlers/straighteners in their bedrooms. Sometimes plugging in a couple to the same outlet to warm up! So I don't think 20amp/12awg outlets in a bedroom is a stretch anymore!
  5. Any thing in a bed room needs to be arc faulted plugs, lights and even smokes , all plugs in a bathrooms need to be GFCI protected and any lights or fan within 3 feet of tub or shower that are less then 8 feet high need to be GFCI protected to. You should figure 1.5 amps per plug or light and not more then 80 percent of total circuit amps so a 20 amp circuit no more then 16 total amps and no more then 10 outlets. You dont need to use 20 amp circuits in bedrooms but you do for plugs in bathrooms you are better off using 15 amp (#14) circuits in bed and for bath lights saves alot of money
  6. Paul, you are correct In all aspects of your question, you will have to interlink your smoke detectors with 12/3.