First, make a diagram of your rooms and indicate where you wish lamps, or outlets for other purposes. Since wooden moulding can be run across ceilings, and up or down walls, lamps may be located in places where they are out of the way. In planning the circuit, remember that you will want many outlets in handy places on the walls, from which portable cords will convey current to table lamps, to electric irons and toasters and other handy devices which can be used on the lamp circuit. These outlets are made of porcelain, in two pieces. One piece is merely a continuation of the moulding itself; and the other is a cap to connect permanently to the end of the lamp or iron cord, which may be snapped into place in a second. Since there are a great many designs of separable current taps on the market, it is well to select one design and stick to it throughout the house, so that any device can be connected to any outlet.
The code permits 660 watts on each circuit. This would allow 12 lamps of 55 watts each. It is well to limit any one circuit to 6 lamps; this will give leeway for the use of small stoves, irons, toasters, etc. without overloading the circuit and causing a fuse to blow.
Having installed your distributing board, with its cut-outs, figure out the course of your first branch circuit. Let us say it will provide lights and outlets for the dining room and living room. It will be necessary to run the wires through the partitions or floors in several places. For this purpose porcelain tubes should be used, costing one to three cents each. Knock holes in the plaster at the determined point, insert the tubes so they project ¾ inch on each side, and fill up the ragged edge of the hole neatly with plaster.
When all the tubes have been set in place, begin laying the moulding. Run it in a straight line, on the wall against the ceiling wherever possible, mitering the joints neatly. Whenever it is necessary to change the run from the ceiling to the wall and a miter cannot be made, the wires should be protected in passing from one slot to the other by being enclosed in non-metallic flexible conduit, called circular loom.
In running wooden moulding, avoid brick walls liable to sweat or draw dampness; keep away from places where the heat of a stove might destroy the rubber insulation of the wires; do not pass nearer than six inches to water pipes when possible—and when it is necessary to pass nearer than this, the wooden moulding should pass above the pipe, not below it, with at least an inch of air space intervening, thus avoiding dampness from sweating of pipes.
Snap switch connections
Places where chandeliers or wall bracket lamps are to be installed permanently are fitted with wooden terminal blocks, which fit over the moulding and flush with the plaster. These, after holes have been bored in them for the wires, and the wires drawn through, should be screwed firmly to the wall or ceiling, always choosing a joist or beam for support. Then a crow's-foot, or tripod of iron, tapped and threaded for iron pipe, is screwed to the terminal block. The iron pipe of the chandelier or wall bracket is then screwed home in this crow's-foot.
