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The $6000 House: Kitchen Design

renosteinke | Posted in General Discussion on January 30, 2015 04:13am

I’ve been rebuilding a house, and I have reached the point where I have to plan the new kitchen.

The kitchen will be a galley type, with a counter on either side of an aisle. The “south” counter will have the fridge, microwave, and range. The “north” counter will have the sink, plus a freezer, an ice maker, and dishwasher.

While the electric code requires at least two 20-amp ‘small appliance’ circuits, is that enough? How should the circuits be arranged?

Well, I went and measured what my appliances really need, and some of the results surprised me.

First off, I learned that the microwave needs a full circuit to itself.Maybe not a code requirement, but there’s not much power left over when it’s cooking.

Looking at the ‘wet’ counter, I see that the tea kettle and the Mr. Coffee – two appliances likely to be used together –  also use up an entire circuit.

Common practice, and prudence, suggest putting the fridge, and the separate freezer, on their own circuit. Code maynot require it, but with an estimated 8 amps combined loads, It starts making sense.

Unfortunately for the ‘code minimum’ folks, this means that even this small kitchen  will want a third ‘small appliance’ circuit-especially if you want to tie in the dining room to one of the kiitchen circuits.

Let’s add these circuits up:

1- Toaster / rice cooker /ice maker

1- Disposal /dishwasher

1- Mr. Coffee /teakettle

1- Fridge and separate freezer

1- South counter

1- Microwave

2- range

This adds up to eight spaces in the panel – enough to warrant giving this part of the house its’own sub-panel. It means three circuits that the code would call “small appliance branch circuits,” more than the code required minimum of two.

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Replies

  1. mark122 | Jan 30, 2015 06:16pm | #1

    code requirements in these parts:

    fridge, microwave, stove all require dedicated circuits

    2- dedicated gfci circuits for counter space.

    code is the minimum so build to your need and dont worry about it if you know you will exceed minimum requirements.

    1. renosteinke | Jan 31, 2015 04:20pm | #2

      Code? So What?

      What on earth does "meeting code" have to do with good design?

      If all that mattered was meeting minimum standards, we'd all be driving Yugos. For some reason, BMW is still around - while Yugo isn't.

      I'll put it another way:

      Good design invariably meets code. "Designing to code" not only results in poor design, it often doesn't meet code, anyway.

      In my particular kitchen - a galley with counters on both sides of an aisle - how would you divide those "two" circuits? One on each side? Wonderful ... considering the overall layout, then come tomorrow's breakfast you'll probably pop the breaker; with the coffee maker, teapot, and toaster likely running together, you've exceeded the 20 amps available to you.

      Likewise, placing everything on those two 'minimum' circuits will likely result in a code violation. The dishwasher,disposal, and refrigerator are not "countertop" appliances. Nor is the range hood. Mount the microwave over the stove, add a range hood, and -voila!- another code violation.

      More important, keep in mind this is a fairly small kitchen, about 8-ft. long.

      That brings us to another point .... what to do when a breaker does trip? I submit that the usual plan, where all the circuits are found in one panel that is either in the basement, behind stacked boxes of Christmas decorations .... or outdoors, behind an overgrown bush, is poor design.

      Instead, why not have a small "sub-panel" set right by the kitchen, serving the dozen or so circuits in that part of the house? A breaker trips, you need only walk a few steps reach it.

      1. mark122 | Jan 31, 2015 08:27pm | #3

        easy tiger...

        more than once you mentioned somethin along the lines of "not sure if this is code"... I simply made a few remarks about items you were mentioning you werent sure about.

        "let me put is this way" good design invariably would be done prior to building a house, not to mention prior to  the electrical being roughed in by a licensed electrician.

        of course, code is the minimum. no one is going to argue that the minimum does not cut it MOST of the time. 

        you really should get an electricain to properly wire the kitchen to address your needs.

  2. renosteinke | Feb 01, 2015 10:30am | #4

    Threads confused?

    The first post made no mention of code issues. This is intended to be strictly a design discussion.

    As for calling in a licensed electrician .... well, let's just say there is one intimately involved with this project. Indeed, one of the reasons I collected the appliance data was to provide some insight into what is actually likely to happen, how the receptacles are likely to be used, in daily life.

    An electrician, left to his own devices, might be tempted to say "hmm.... kitchen .... two circuits ... I'll run one on the left and one on the right." Such would be legal, and every inspector would improve. Then, the first breakfast, and 'pop' goes the breaker. The occupant would 'solve' this by moving the toaster to the other counter, and just get used to it.

    Likewise, many folks - electrician and otherwise- might not think of adding a separate panel. Only when you count how many circuits are  clustered in one place does the idea appear.

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