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What to ask our electrician?

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    #16
    I was going to suggest a long list of things and then read the thread and it looks like most are covered well already. Neutral in every box, deep boxes, separate light/fan wires, extra cabling, even conduit...

    I have a few things I might add though. One the discussion of conduit from the head-end location, if you can swing it I'd get a couple large conduits run to the attic and to the basement if you have one. Having room for growth with new circuitry is a lifesaver later. Always leave a pullstring (not flimsy little masonry string) behind in the pipe. If you use your string to pull a new run, pull a new one in with the cable.

    Since you say your wife is in the PV panel business. Do yourself the favor of installing a main electrical load center and a subpanel on a transfer switch. If you are not going to have a battery bank, then doing a muti-transfer would be recommended and have a circuit for generator on it as well. Even if you dont own a generator right now, get yourself a nice little pad poured out back with a power inlet on the house as close as possible. Run a natural gas line (if you have natural gas going in) to that location and cap it. Now, if and when you want it, you can have a full power backup of whatever size you want. As i said, if shes getting you guys into a battery bank then that might not be a need for you. Go ahead and plan space for a battery bank now though.


    Have several outdoor outlets installed including one near the front door. Use something like the enerwave single or double load relays inside the backbox to switch them on/off. Leave them off when they are not needed.

    Speaking of the enerwave dual load relays.... if you have places you may want 2 HA switched outlets, get your electrician to install the duplex outlets that are made to let you separate the hot for the top an bottom plug, then stuff the dual load relay in the deep box behind it....easy dual switched outlet.

    Request deeper boxes for your ceiling fan mounts. HA or not....these always need to be deeper than provided.

    Run your alarm on a serial polling loop instead of traditional zones with individual home-runs. Run whatever your polling loop is for your alarm system so that it goes everywhere now, even if you arent putting in a device there. so wrap the perimeter in the attic in an accessible location and do the same with the basement/crawlspace, etc. Leave a bit of service loop in it here and there. With this in mind, you can easily tap into your polling loop and add in devices later without really having to add cable anywhere other than at the device you are adding. The service loop will give you slack to use to make the tap. Always tap in a junction box, never do a flying tap.

    man, I could go on for days..... but I'm sure you've got this.

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      #17
      Electric Vehicles (EV) are getting more and more popular. I recently got a Chevy Bolt and am loving it. If I were wiring a house today, I would think of where an EV might be parked when charging and I'd put a 50 amp circuit with a 14-50 receptacle there.

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        #18
        Just wanted to circle back and say "thanks!" for the tips.

        We had meetings with two electricians so far and both told us they already use deep boxes for all switch outlets and do three-wire runs to the lights. So that was nice we knew to bring that up and also that there should be no up-charge for those (always a plus).

        We had a pretty complete list of our own as well which overlapped several other points you brought up.

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