Electrical Tragedy and Miscellany

With the new wall framed between the kitchen and garage, I went ahead and installed a subpanel in the garage.  I slightly modified an existing conduit, pulled out the old wire, and ran heavy 4-gauge wire from the main panel to the subpanel.  This subpanel controls most of the kitchen and the garage, offloading those functions from an otherwise over-crowded main panel.

Unfortunately, one of the clumsy contractors managed to hit the conduit with a jackhammer, damaging both the conduit and the wires within.  This required re-excavating the area around the conduit, disassembling the entire subpanel, cutting and attaching the conduit, and running all-new wire.  Total cost of contractor's mistake: several hundred dollars and a weekend of my time.  Boo.

I installed a second conduit from the subpanel to the kitchen island.  This conduit carries the wiring for the dishwasher, disposal, and island outlets.  In this photo you can also see that the kitchen sink plumbing has been moved to its new location, and the DWV has been run inside the boxed-in post, up through the roof.

On a chill day, I went ahead and did the wiring for the security system.  Unlike the old-fashioned sensors that ran conductive tape all over the windows and had clunky magnets along the edge of every opening, the new sensors are hidden discreetly in the frames of doors or windows.  You can't even tell that the sensor is there.

Rounding out the sensor network is a motion detector / glass-break detector combo, strategically located to have a view of most of the house.  These devices are hardwired (no annoying battery replacements like I'd get with a wireless system), with a central control panel located out of the way.  The system can be controlled by wireless key fobs.  Getting this out of the way now means all the wiring can be run in the walls, which is far more elegant than trying to retrofit a security system later on.

I also did the wiring for the fire alarms - one in each bedroom and one in the hallway.  These fire alarms run off of A/C power, with battery backup.  They also communicate, such that if any alarm goes off, all of them go off - for better or worse (code requirement).