Hello. Great site! I have been working on a plan to finish my basement and I would like to run the electrical plans by you and ask some questions. This will be a little long, sorry. First a little background. I am Electrical Engineer, but deal mostly with small electronics. I am going to submit plans to my village and get permits/inspections and I plan on doing the work myself. I have read through a ton of questions on here and it helped a great deal. I have 200 amp service and plenty of room in the main panel located in the basement. My village says they follow 1999 NEC. They also require all wiring to be run in conduit.

Here is my plan. I will add 7 new circuits and modify one existing circuit. I will use receptacles rated for 20 amps with 12 gauge wire.
Circuit 1 – Bathroom, 20 amp with GFI outlet by sink. There will be a vent fan that I will run through the GFI but the vanity light I will pull power off before the GFI.
Circuit 2 – Office/Bedroom, 20 amp arc fault. 7 receptacles, 4 can lights on single switch, 1 fluorescent in closet. The smoke detector/carbon monoxide will be interconnected to the existing detectors in the house.
Circuit 3 – Play room, 20 amp. 6 receptacle, 5 can lights on single switch
Circuit 4 – Buffet/counter area, 20 amp. 3 receptacles, 2 can lights. There will probably be a mini-fridge here or a wine chiller here. No sink though.
Circuit 5 – Existing 15 amp circuit for basement lights and 3 current smoke detectors. I will remove all the pull chain lights and add 3 can lights, two wall lights, 1 receptacle and 1 smoke detector. The lights will be on a 3 way switch
Circuit 6 – Great room, 20 amp. 9 receptacles only. TV and entertainment center
Circuit 7 – Great room, 20 amp, 2 receptacles, 10 can lights on 3 way switch
Circuit 8 – 20 amp run through basement to garage.

Questions
1)I was going to run a light off the existing circuit for the furnace in the utility room. Is this OK? The utility room will not be finished. Do I need to provide a 20 amp GFI outlet in this room?
2)Regarding the conduit. When running the conduit across the wood studs do I need to drill holes in the center of the stud and feed the pipe through? Or can I notch out a gap in the front of the stud and lay the pipe in there? I am not sure if there are rules against having the conduit up against the drywall at the front of the stud like there is for Romex. Any tips for running/bending conduit?
3) When running the conduit to the can lights can the last foot or two be made up of flexible metal conduit or does it all have to be solid pipe?
4)Should I use stranded or solid wire? I will pull a ground just to make me feel better even though the rest of the house doesn’t have a ground wire.

Is there anything I am missing? Any suggestions? If you want to see the plan I can try to scan it and post it here. Thank you for anything you can help out with!

Answers follow your questions:

Questions
1)I was going to run a light off the existing circuit for the furnace in the utility room. Is this OK? The utility room will not be finished. Do I need to provide a 20 amp GFI outlet in this room?

Yes. Any general purpose outlet in an unfinished basement space must be GFI, except for stationary appliances.


2)Regarding the conduit. When running the conduit across the wood studs do I need to drill holes in the center of the stud and feed the pipe through? Or can I notch out a gap in the front of the stud and lay the pipe in there? I am not sure if there are rules against having the conduit up against the drywall at the front of the stud like there is for Romex. Any tips for running/bending conduit?


Why conduit? Need to be sure nails or screws cannot be driven into hidden conduit. Notching can weaken structure. You can use flexible conduit, either metal or plastic.

Installing conduit cannot be explained by words alone, you need to practice.


3) When running the conduit to the can lights can the last foot or two be made up of flexible metal conduit or does it all have to be solid pipe?

See above.

4)Should I use stranded or solid wire? I will pull a ground just to make me feel better even though the rest of the house doesn't have a ground wire.

Stranded pulls so much easier in conduit than solid.



Is there anything I am missing? Any suggestions? If you want to see the plan I can try to scan it and post it here. Thank you for anything you can help out with!

Need to check local codes, national electric code requires ALL utilization outlets, including smoke detectors in bedrooms to be AFCI protected, some states waived that and do not want SD AFCI protected.

I'll check with my village about the arc fault on the smoke detector.

Thanks again.

Ok, Chicago, the one area that is all conduit. Does all conduit need to be stick, or is flexible allowed?

At least one outlet is required in an unfinished space.