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With all the petrochemicals leeching into the water table around here, combined with the high cancer rates the Houston Metro area has, I wasn't taking ANY chances. Three years ago we has a whole house Reverse Osmosis System installed. It has made a HUGE difference health wise. If you do go with an RO system, it will strip everything but the water out of the water, chlorine, calcium, and flouride included. You may want to either make sure...

Quote: Originally Posted by Tom Slick Or the "two" circuits could be connected in a daisy chain, very common in house wiring. Or you could combine multiple circuits in a J-box and make a "home run" to the breaker. Not common in house wiring but very common in commercial/industrial. True, but the pigtail at the breaker box is probably the easiest. No pulling new wiring or figuring out where the existing...

Quote: Originally Posted by dbhost Gotcha... Kind of makes sense... How would I fit a sub panel for the shop into that assuming that the entire panel is full? Some of the breakers would be removed (normally 20 amp ones) and 220 ones placed in their place, that go to a daughter panel. The removed ones as well as the additions would be in the daughter panel.

to feed the sub-panel you could get some 1/2 size 20 amp breakers and replace 4 full size breakers with the 1/2 size breakers this will leave you with 2 full size slots open to run the sub-panel feed from. you would still have all the breakers that you have know. This will work with most panels such as Sq D, GE, Siemens, sylvania etc. Cuttler hammer does not offer this option on their older panels.

to feed the sub-panel you could get some 1/2 size 20 amp breakers and replace 4 full size breakers with the 1/2 size breakers this will leave you with 2 full size slots open to run the sub-panel feed from. you would still have all the breakers that you have know. This will work with most panels such as Sq D, GE, Siemens, sylvania etc. Cuttler hammer does not offer this option on their older panels.

Quote: Originally Posted by crokett True, but the pigtail at the breaker box is probably the easiest. Pigtailing in the service panel requires a wire nut. While I read nothing in NEC that prohibits this, I have heard heard that some inspectors will not allow wire nuts in service panels. I don't see anything wrong with it and have done it, just a "heads up" that some inspectors may balk at this.

To my delight, I just found the answer on this FAQ ! Quote: Even if you received the full $500 for the tax credits back in 2006 or 2007, you are still eligible for the full $1,500 in 2009 and 2010.

clearly not every breaker is maxed out all the time. Many of your 20 A breakers will have only 2-3 amps on them. As long as your house pulls under 150 Amps the main brekaer will not trip. Each individual circuit is protected to 20A or 40A which is the capacity on the wire on that branch, so if you do draw a large current on that line it will not catch fire. The basic point is that you can't have every breaker carrying their max current....

Another approach is to identify the most lightly loaded circuits, usually lighting circuits, and to have one breaker serve for both of them, e.g. if your living room, dining room or bedroom circuits take less than, say 10 amps each with everything on and they are on a 20 amp or more breaker, they can be doubled up. You might be able to free two breaker positions this way. Watch out for heavier loads like electric space heaters though. Figure...

I installed a Culligan filter on the cold water line to the kitchen sink. Took a bit of doing, because my under-sink connectors didn't match those of the filter. Local hardware store had adapters for about $5. It's working fine. Nice to be able to run a drinkable glass of water!