The solution to this is a subpanel for the kitchen, in the kitchen somewhere. Is your stove and oven electric?
See above but also:
Range is electric but that is 240V so not interfering with anything else.
Also, the kitchen isn't the only place I need additional circuits. Actually it isn't even the most critical. I don't have any current electrical issues in the kitchen. When I remodel I want to keep it that way by adding a few new 20A circuits rather than tapping into the existing 15A circuits.
My most immediate electrical issue is that I installed an exhaust fan in the upstairs bathroom but I can't use the heat feature unless the other big draws on that circuit are all shut down.
Background:
My master bath did not have an exhaust fan when we bought the house. It had a light so I checked ad discovered that the light was wired with 12GA wire. I therefore assumed it was on as 20A circuit.
In retrospect it was a mistake to make that assumption. Legally you are NOT permitted to run 12GA downstream of 14GA but that is what existed in my house. It is 14GA from breaker box to switch then 12GA from switch to light*.
I put in a fancy exhaust fan with four features:
Wife wanted this because she is perpetually cold. The problem is that this is all on a 15A circuit that also powers the rest of the bathroom and half of the bedroom.
The heat will run on a 15A breaker, IIRC it is a 1,500 watt heater so that uses 12.5 Amps (1,500/120). The problem is that only leaves 2.5 Amps for everything else on the circuit. That is NOT enough.
This is fairly easy to solve. I'm going to replace the existing breaker with a tandem 15A breaker and put the heat alone on one half leaving everything else on the other.
The problem is that I can't get there to run the wire!
*The preexisting light was an add on by a previous owner so I assume that they just didn't know the difference between 12GA and 14GA.
