Building a new house and want to make sure I got all the electric covered. Besides outlets all over the place and under soffits at each corner, is there anything special I should think about? 220 in the garage?

Floor boxes in the living areas.

And to any kitchen islands if you have one.

Outlet(s) in the floor in Living Room where side tables will be.

Outlets higher on the wall for wall mount TVs where it makes sense.

Recessed lighting in all bedrooms, not just lights on the fan.

Lighting in coat closets; maybe it was just our builder, but no lights in any of our coat closets.

Consider Landscape lighting.

While not electrical, in my opinion, put CAT5E / CAT6 throughout the house. Add CAT5E runs outside where you think you may want security cameras. Terminate everything to a media closet.

Definitely 220 in the garage. Even if you don't need it for tools, Decent chance you will have an electric car/plug-in hybrid if you live there for a while. If you're in a hurricane area, consider adding a hookup in the back yard to plug in a generator.

I would also have them stub up electrical at the rear corner of backyard. Had this done previously and now we ran the party lights along back fence on a timer.

Also, add an exterior outlet on all sides of your house.

Think of potential places you may want a beer fridge or freezer in your garage.

Attic lights and additional outlets (2-3)

Local attic switch(es) for your A/C unit(s)

Ddp

Thx y'all! Wife's going to love the cost of the new change order! (Since builders charge such a reasonable expense for this...).

I'm going to re-iterate CAT5E or CAT6 cable everywhere. I would also encourage properly sized speaker wire for surround sound in ANY areas you think you may have kind of an idea of maybe some day having surround speakers. On top of all of this, I like to have conduit run to the attic from anywhere a TV is going to be as well as down a wall where I may have to fish wire later. If I don't have to fish tape or rod a new wire that makes me warm and fuzzy.

If you are handy at all, get some Carlon Riser Gard conduit, run to all the spots you think you'll put a TV one day. Or run one all the way down to where a media cabinet might be. I added a bunch to my media closet for future internet, cell phone booster, security cameras, etc. Just add a blank cover on the wall over the box. Sure makes pulling cable wire easy and in fact you can put your cable boxes in the attic and run HDMI cables inside the wall down to the TV. My builder let me go in one weekend and add bunch of this flexible conduit.

I also switched a couple outside flood lights next to the master bed in case of emergency.....eerr raccoons. Don't even have to get up to light up the yard.

If you plan on doing any home automation, make sure they wire appropriately so that you can change out switches/plugs one day.

SpreadsheetAg said:

---

zaab said:

---

Thx y'all! Wife's going to love the cost of the new change order! (Since builders charge such a reasonable expense for this...).

---

Bro; it's residential wiring - go in at night with your own cable runs and boxes - the sheetrockers won't know who did the wiring and will just make the holes for them. As long you're still in the framing stage; just make it a night party and do it yourself.

I snuck a bunch of stuff like this into my first home that we had built.

---

Made the stealth wiring this weekend and ran LAN cables to everywhere I could think of. they made a mistake and put a 220 in the back of the house instead of the back of the garage so now I have power for a pool. (the thought has occurred to me that their mistake is going to cost me tens of thousands for a new pool because "hey, I have power there already..."

When we built our house, they put an outlet on every wall. No issues....but every damn outlet is covered by a bed headboard, furniture or chair! I'd receommed having an outlet at least every 6-8' on a wall. Or with in 2-3' of each door way.

We had one room that didn't have an easy outlet to plug a vacuum cleaner into. I'll be damned if we didn't have to use a hallway outlet 20' away!

Have a 50 amp RV plug in our garage.

Everywhere you have a toilet closet, put an outlet in there for a nightlight

Not sure if electrical code has changed, but 220 used to be acceptable to be 2 conductor + ground anywhere outside of the living spaces (garage, A/C). This was a minor pain in the ass as some newer equipment/appliances are sort of hybrid and run off of a combination of 110/220 - so look for the neutral conductor that isn't there.

Make sure you're running (or specified) 3 conductor + ground cable to all the 220 spots around/outside the house. Inside will already be 3 + ground I think that's been code for a while.

Shouldnt be said but separate light/fan switches.

FrankWhite'56 said:

---

Not sure if electrical code has changed, but 220 used to be acceptable to be 2 conductor + ground anywhere outside of the living spaces (garage, A/C). This was a minor pain in the ass as some newer equipment/appliances are sort of hybrid and run off of a combination of 110/220 - so look for the neutral conductor that isn't there.

Make sure you're running (or specified) 3 conductor + ground cable to all the 220 spots around/outside the house. Inside will already be 3 + ground I think that's been code for a while.

---

Appliances have long since used 120 to run timers, lights, etc and 240 for heating elements, etc. The difference is you can no longer "ground thru the neutral" regardless of location, and need a 3 wire plus ground circuit. Been like that for 15-20 years now. It's not something you'd need to specify. If it is, you have the wrong electrician.

Get some of the outlets that have the usb plugs in the middle. My hubby likes to plug in his phone in the kitchen.

We also ended up needing more than 2 x cat5e behind the LR television. I am using a 5 port switch now.

Run at 4-6 runs of Cat6 to primary TV locations that have the potential of having a lot of peripheral devices connected to them. For those same locations, run two coax as well.

Then run all Cat and coax cable back to a central location.

From the "network" side, I have 15 Cat6 runs throughout the house running back to a central closet hooking into a 24 port PoE router. 3 of them being dedicate to AP's. Helps that I work for Cisco.

If you ever want a hot tub, wire it now.
We put in plug behind toilets for bidet lid. Love it.
We put a box in soffits for Christmas lights with a wall switch inside.
My wife hates small appliances on the counter tops I wished we would have put outlet in pantry for toaster.

+1 on the separate fan/light switches (i.e put in a 2 gang w/ 2 switches, and run 3 conductor to the fan boxes). Also, make sure the ceiling boxes are fan rated and properly braced.

+1 on the Cat 5e/Cat 6/Coax

+1 on power for TV mounts

Stub in Cat 5e/Cat 6 to the soffits/eaves if you want to run PoE security cameras... You could also run a bunch of ENT Flexible conduit and boxes with pull strings to future proof for any potential ethernet/coax/phone/stereo/etc runs

Make sure you have a doorbell... our builder didn't install one on any houses in our phase...

Stub in for under kitchen cabinet lighting if it's not already on the plan

Multiple 110 receptacles in the garage... Only 1 is code, and it'll probably be inconveniently located

Multiple light boxes/simple light kits or a few fluorescent light kits in the garage

Receptacles on both sides of your master bath vanity.

2 gang/4 receptacles on each side of master bed

Floor plugs on big open rooms

Double flood light at rear soffit

Block and wire for ceiling fans in all rooms

undercabinet lighting & extra 110s for above cabinet lights

coach light on both sides of garage door

flush mount led lighting in lieu of recessed cans (over 20 year life) Make sure they are dimmable, even if you don't get dimmers

cable and 110 in garage for a tv later

speaker wire for recessed speakers/surround sound seems to be going away in lieu of wireless. Good speakers perform better a little away from the wall on a stand so you don't lose the sound you paid for as it's absorbed into the wall.

eye ball trimmed recess cans at art niche for family gallery

110s on side of mirrors in baths for side lighting

110s for lighting and power options in walkin closet