Rewire

I have a home that I just bought and I have some circuits that have only 1 plug on them, for what reason I do not know. I also have a circuit that has my half bath, kitchen lights, and laundry room lights. Now these rooms all are very close and I was looking to have a dedicated line for microwave, refrigerator, and split the kitchen plugs between two circuits. After looking I can have 2 open fuses, but my question is how can I find out which way they wired my house without tearing every piece of drywall out.

 

Sometimes people will put a single receptacle on a circuit if it's for supplying power to a high current item like a space heater, air conditioner, etc.

Having the lights on a circuit by themselves is a good thing as that circuit will usually not trip and leave you stranded in the dark. Kitchen receptacles should not be added to that circuit.

The only way to determine wiring is by first identifying what is on each circuit. Then you'll need to open the junction boxes where you want to change and identify the present wiring.

As an electrician, I'd pull out the devices on the circuit that I'm working on and open all the connections. Then I'd use a tone tracer to identify where each piece of wire goes. For me this is easy. I memorize the connections that I open for later reconnect. You'll need to identify your wiring for reconnection.

You mentioned fuses..... do you still have a fusebox ?
Might be time to look into an upgrade of that to a circuit breaker panel. Leave the existing single receptacle circuits as they are and just add new circuits/receptacles.

 

I'm sorry I was not clear, yes I do have a circuit breaker panel. I plan to have lights on 1 circuit and plugs on a different circuit, with the first plug being a GFI. My wife and I did go through our entire circuit breaker panel and wrote down for each circuit what we could identify on each one. I thank you for the advice on the tone tracer, I get a new tool.

 

Often times it is just a logical connect-a-dots way of wiring, A to B to C etc. The route is rarely important. Installing a GFI would be one exception.