I can handle basic wiring, but designing and implementing an entire house presented a challenge. To prepare, I did some homework. I spent a lot of time with Charles Wing’s Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling (you can find multiple sources on line, here’s one: https://archive.org/details/visualhandbookof00wing). For general guidance on building codes and circuit capacities, https://www.thespruce.com/common-electrical-codes-by-room-1152276
is a good source of information.
The wiring plan was the first and most difficult step. This is an area where mistakes involve high penalties, and there are rules:
Circuits for lighting fixtures are 15 amperes
Circuits for electrical outlets are 20 amps, and there should be no more than 10 per circuit.
Electrical boxes come in various sizes, and each size has a limit as to the number of conductors it can hold.
I went over the floor plans (see Designing the Outback Floor Plan) and determined where each lighting fixture, outlet, switch and smoke alarm should go. Each of these counts as a “device” in electrician parlance. I grouped these into potential circuits, and sketched out wiring on the floor plans.
Each device gets an identifying number
The next step was to create a database including every device and every connection between them (I use Microsoft Access). Using this I could check that circuit sizes were correct, that box capacities were not exceeded and, most important, produce a detailed listing and label for every wire and a complete map to be stored at the service panel.
What emerged was a plan for 10 circuits and 110 devices (outlets, switches, smoke alarms, etc.) to cover the Outback interior (there are plans for several more for the shop and the deck).
After that, it was just a matter of drilling holes through framing, installing boxes, pulling wires, and hooking everything up. Hopefully I didn’t make any serious mistakes and the results don’t appear too amateurish.