this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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Some of those things are decent ideas, others more questionable. The bit about no exterior plugs is, I think, completely wrong.
With regards to insulation, an interior plug removes just as much insulation as an exterior plug, because they take up about the same amount of space inside the walls. One more won't make a difference. I think you're probably thinking about airflow. We've known for decades how to deal with that, so that shouldn't be an issue, either.
More importantly, most of us need some kind of car and in Canada, even internal combustion engines need to be plugged in (block heaters).
We're also moving fairly quickly to an all-electric life. Realistically, we're likely to need more exterior outlets, not fewer.
An EV charger is mounted to the outside of the house. An electrical cable specifically for that charger is then ran to the breaker.
As for interior/exterior being equal, they are not.
There's usually only 2-3 exterior outlets contributing to heat loss, where a house may have 10-20x the amount of outlets on the interior side of outside facing walls.
You forgot about the costs of running copper to every corner of the house. A ton of copper and costs associated with housing can be avoided if we reconsider the building codes.
Keep ones intended for safety, reconsider the ones intended for convenience?
You make some good points. But I wasn't clear in my point about interior vs exterior outlets. If they are done correctly, each outdoor outlet has very nearly the same impact as each interior outlet installed inside an exterior wall. Given the number of interior outlets installed like that, 2-4 exterior outlets has minimal impact, maybe not even enough to reliably measure.
As for costs, yes, the cost of copper definitely adds up (I just installed power in my shop). Even so, it will be little more than a rounding error on construction costs. And smarter deployment would save copper. Yes, the outlet used for block heaters should be on their own circuit or shared with a traditional AC. My outlets are each on their own circuit. Other than the one intended for block heaters, they could have easily been incorporated into the circuits of the adjoining rooms, both of which are bedrooms.