 WIRE
GAUGE QUESTION
 The general question I have,
and I believe most do-it-yourselfers have, is about the mixing of 12
gauge and 14 gauge wires in a home improvement project. An
electrician told me you can go from 14 gauge to 12 gauge wire but you
cannot go the other way. I figured that if you connected the 12
gauge wire to one side of an outlet you could safely hook a 14 gauge
wire to the other side and extend it to additional outlets. Do
you agree?
The responses to this question were
numerous.........
Provided the circuit is protected with a 15 amp breaker or fuse I see no
reason that you can't go either way 14 to 12 or 12 to 14 .Some receptacles
might not take a #12 wire. Roy Cooke sr. - Brighton, Ontario
Canada
If you have a #12 feed, you would have a 20 amp breaker protecting the feed. However, if the branch lines from the feed would be #14 that only holds 15 amps. Doing it this way the 20 amp breaker no protects a #14 wire
that's only rated for 15 amps. Wont work. Hy Naiditch - Spokie, IL
It depends on the breaker protecting the line, if the breaker is 15 amps then yes it is ok, otherwise NO.
Chris Burkhart - Sandy, UT
In real life, probably yes. In theory no because of the upgrade current you will produce, minimal however and most electricians will over look but, still not code and at this rate code inspectors
usually overlook as well. Nelson E. Wahlstrom - Littleton, CO
Wrong! If 12 gauge wire is installed from the 20 amp breaker then it cannot be lessened with 14 gauge at any point if servicing outlets. Exception can be made if servicing a light fixture that terminates the circuit. I Think!!
Reggie Ayres - Medford, OR
The 12AWG wire to the outlet would suggest a 20amp fuse/breaker, in such case extending with a 14AWG would not be correct, however if it were a 15amp outlet circuit extending with a 14AWG wire should be no problem. But you still left with the
possibility that someone may elect to increase from 15amp to 20amp back in the panel, which would now create an overfused condition for the 14AWG wire. Robert E Lee City
- Rochester, MN
That would depend on the ampacity of the circuit breaker. If the breaker is a fifteen amp breaker, then the 14 gauge wire would be fine. If the breaker is any larger than no 14
gauge wire at the receptacle circuits. Jon Gudnason - Placerville, CA
This would not be safe if the 12
gauge wire was connected to the circuit breaker. It would be safe to install a 20 amp. breaker to the 12
gauge wire, but when you connected the 14 gauge downstream you could be setting yourself up for over fusing in the 14
gauge wires, if they were to try to pull over 15 amps there way. Ron Cloyd City
- Klamath Falls, OR
Having two degrees in electrical I can simply tell you that you may connect 12 gauge wire to a 15 amp breaker but not a 14 gauge wire to a 20 amp breaker---this would be overfusing. What could happen is this: say a nail is driven into the wall to hang a picture and
inadvertently pierces the #14 Romex (use a cap as this is a proper noun). The short is not great enough to trip the 20 amp breaker but would a 15 amp
breaker. The wire heats up inside the wall cavity, starts the outer wire sheathing on fire, then the stud and eventually travels to the roof. This is why we report this as a "potential fire hazard condition." The bottom line here is you cannot mix the wire sizes. One other point that may be of interest. You all probably know that ohms is the unit that measures the resistance in a conductor. Did you know that ohms spelled backwards, or mhos, is the unit of how well a wire conducts electricity. The higher the mhos the less
resistance (or better conductance) thus the less heat loss (or power wasted) and the cheaper the bill. On a related note, power loss is also dictated by voltage. That's why industrial applications often use 408v systems as power is a product of voltage times current. Thus, with a higher voltage you use less current for the same load and, of course have a smaller heat loss. Well, so much for Electrical 101 but I hope it was of interest to some of you.
Jim Lucas - Camino, CA
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This
shocking event takes me from jacket mode and booties to full snowmobile suit,
Sorel snow boots, fingerless gloves and fur lined hat mode. You can forget
about the need for booties because you will not be wearing the same footgear on
the outside that you do on the inside.
In the
past few years I have inspected dozens of boiler systems using my
regular heating section as my template. This has always bugged
me, but never enough to take the time to create a special boiler
section of my report. Well I have taken the time to come up with
the subheadings and menu items, but I am certain that I am missing
some key elements. For example, what is the correct water
temperature range when the boiler is in the heating mode?..... I can't remember and it is probably
wrong. I guess that I am going to have to rehit the books.
I would like each of you to temporarily leave the MMM and review the hierarchy
layout of my 3D boiler section for obvious holes of non-reported
items. The blue lines are the subheadings and the other text are
the menu items starting off with the abbreviated comment followed by
the menu text. To view this section please click here on 
The drain trap was installed in an "S" configuration. Under certain circumstances, this could allow venting of sewer gasses into the surrounding area. Modification to conform to present standards is suggested. Jon Gudnason
- Placerville, CA
