electrical for the bathroom.

One of things that was necessary for this remodel was to wire a couple of new 20A branch circuits: one for the whirlpool motor, and another for, well, just in case (possibly heated flooring, but we haven't committed to installing that just yet so, if not that, potentially just more outlets).

It took an hour or two to snake the two 50' cables from the bathroom, across the house through the basement ceiling, to the electrical service panel (a Federal Pacific split-bus panel). Scott and I had bookmarked the dual-pole, 20A breakers that used to feed some baseboard heaters upstairs, long-since disconnected (it was one of the first things I did when I moved in, seeing how there was a brand-new, gas forced-air furnace for heat).

(We pulled the dual-pole breaker, so the hole is now at top left).

These split-bus panels work in such a way as to provide a few dual-pole, 220V breakers, along with a (in this case, 60A) dual-pole breaker that shuts off the power to everything in the power bus below (lights and outlets, primarily). There exists a '6 Switch Rule' that states - sans a main shutoff breaker for all electrical service - there can be no more than six breakers to flip off in order to kill all the power to the house. So, by adding two single-pole breakers in place of the double-pole, I'm technically violating that rule - and we should wire the new branch circuits off the subpanel (out of frame of that photo above to the left, about two feet away). I may end up installing a new service panel, replacing this old FPE panel (there exists a lot of chatter about the questionable validity of these FPE panels and - more importantly - breakers, but this install seems pretty clean and shows no signs of overheated breakers, etc.). So in the meantime - since we wired the cables to this panel - I'll let it slide. And technically, another of the dual-pole breakers is permanently switched OFF because it also powered more baseboard heaters, also ripped out of the house so the circuit isn't doing any service.

All that said, we discovered that FPE breakers - since they're no longer made - are $50 a pop at ol' Home Depot! Uhh, dang. But K had a brilliant idea... what about Ebay? Sure enough - they're all over Ebay (maybe a sign they're not the greatest breakers), so I ordered two 'thick,' single-pole 20A breakers for the new circuits.

Scott and I had already tied the neutrals and grounds to the neutral bus bar after pulling the cables, so the other night it was an easy job to finish wiring the hot wires to the 'new' breakers and pop them in the panel -

Then test the GFCI outlet we had installed on the new framing at the motor end of the new whirlpool bathtub -

It worked (glowing green light, and of course verified with an electrical cable tester)! So we now have power for the tub, as well as an extra circuit for... something. I'll deal with the panel later.