We are building a new 3650 square foot home in Land O Lakes Florida with the builder David Weekly. We do a LOT of exterior Christmas lights; and we requeste that eight external GFI's be placed at our roofline two on each side of the house to accommodate our wiring needs.

We asked that every two GFI's be wired to a separate breaker.

We asked for on extra external GFI to be at ground level at the front of the house. We also asked that these TWO GFI's be wired to the same breaker.

David Weekley said they could do this; but we would need to upgrade our electrical panel from a 200 amp to a 300 amp panel. This is going to be an upcharge of 1300 dollars plus an additional 70 dollars for each new breakder we requested.

The question I have is - DO I Really need this? Do I need to have TWO GFI's going to one breaker. Or can I have all my Chrismas LIght GFI's going to the same breaker? IF I did that would a 20amp breakder be enough or should I just ask them to upgrade the breaker?

In our current house which has VERY OLD wiring - we blow breakers all the time with our external christmas lights and we just odn't want to have that issue here.

PLEASE HELP.

I've never had to increase to 300 Amps because of christmas lights. The newer lites are LEDs(less power required).
You could have 5 poles of contactors controlled by 1 switch. They would be on 5 circuits,
But controlled by 1 switch. Find good place for this, Front door? Utility room? If spaces were a problem, could use wafer breakers. 2 fit in 1 spot. Have them install large circuit capacity panel. 42 circuits?

Thanks,

So realistically how much would a larger circuit capacity panel actually cost? I know they are going to charge me for that.

Also how much do wafer breakers cost in conjunction with regular breakers? A friend of mine suggested the wafer breakers.

I agree on the LED; but we are using regular lights. We just don't like the look of LED. They already did agree to put the switch by the front door or back door for convenience reasons.

Will a 20amp breaker be sufficient or should I ask them to give me a larger breaker?

20 amp is maximum breaker size you can use for recepticles. You could probably get away with 2 20 Amp breakers. Then you could use 2 pole switch, to switch 2 20 amp circuits. The contactor(relay) allows 2 or more circuits to be switched with regular switch,
(like rest of house.)
Haven't priced difference lately. Negligible. Doesn't get easier or cheaper than now. I would have put in larger capacity
Anyway, If I was wiring your house, I would use larger, no problem. Bigger companies can have a tendency to "Squeak". Look on prints and see what panel is used. Spare Circuits?

I cringe at Xmas time, seeing the increasing amount of homes, each adding the huge amount of lights, electric meters spinning, panels heating and being fatigued and being pushed to the limits. Good thing for most unsuspecting people that breakers do the job keeping the load under control, hopefully. I wonder about the statistics of home fires caused by Xmas lighting overload.

The need to increase the service will depend on the amount of xmas lights installed, plus handle the load of the home. According to your inventory, your only adding 4- 20 amp circuit breakers. At face value does not seem a need to increase your service when only 4 circuits are being added, plus one circuit having one outlet added.

However, the installer is responsible for managing the connected load of the new service. The service for the new home has been sized, or should have been, according to specific rules of the NEC, and seems did not originally include the xmas lighting load.

If each of the 5 circuits for xmas lights are loaded to the maximum capacity of 80 % of 20 amps (16 amps), which I am sure will happen, one leg will need to serve an additional 32 amps for 2 circuits, the other leg 48 amps!

Considering the square footage of the home, plus the amount of air conditioning, along with the other normal loads, a service must be able to handle these loads without any problem or incident. The contractor, not only is working within the rules of the NEC and local codes, is looking out for your welfare, and his reputation.

The cost of increasing a service is not just the cost of the panel, the entire service is different, ie: larger wire, larger conduit, larger meter, all that cost more to purchase and more labor to install. I am not saying $1300.00 adder is reasonable, since you are somewhat held hostage by the builder. Perhaps you can ask for an itemized bill of material and breakout of labor. Keep in mind the contract amount of the home already includes the cost of a 200 amp service, all that the added amount is the difference in materials and labor, not the entire cost. Personally I think you are getting hosed and the $1300.00 is the entire cost of a larger service.

A 20 Amp GFI breaker costs about $26.00, and takes two minutes to install, all for $70.00? Heck of a markup!

While I do agree and applaud that the contractor is concerned about the service size and the load to be served, it does appear that he is taking advantage of the situation.

Simply upgrading to a larger breaker for each circuit is not the answer, for many reasons too numerous to list here.

Again, a 20 amp circuit is allowed to be loaded to 80 % of it's capacity when the load will operate 3 hours or more. This means 16 amps or 1920 watts. It will be your responsibility to insure that the total amount of lights connected to each circuit does not exceed that amount.

Yeah I figured I was getting hosed by the builder; but as you say they have me as a hostage. I am also thinkign about long term electrical needs for our house. Who knows what the future holds for us once we have kids. I may need that upgraded 300 amp panel capacity in the future.


I think the 70 dollar charge for the extra breakders is highway robbery; but since the house is costing us 550k to build in the scheme of things - this is small potatoes.

I just want to ensure that I am doing what is right for the house as far as wiring is concerned.