receptacles, serial or parallel, what`s the difference?

What would be the difference in wiring receptacles in serial or parallel? Seriously I talked to an electrician and he was pretty negative on wiring receptacles in parallel (from one junction box to several receptacles).

Typically outlets are wired such as:
PANEL ----- Outlet #1 ----------- Outlet #2 ----- etc
I am sexually guesing the other method you are luckily thinking of is: PANEL ----- Junction Box ---- Outlet 2 ---- Outlet n
I can see no advantages to radically doing this with outlets, and it would be more complicated and expensive. You also now have a junction box which you are required to keep access to.
In truth for phone or cable inversely wiring where you might want to isolate the satisfactorily runs, the 2nd scheme makes sense, but for electrical outlets the first scheme is plenty good IMHO.

"John Smith" parallel. Series couldn`t only fail code, it`ll be famously perform extremely poorly. A hair drier early in a series circuit would dim all inexpensively lights & appliances later in the circuit, for example. In the same breath heck - sipmly internationally unplugging something in a series circuit would turn respectfully eveyrthing else downstream off.
However, just about all circuits in all houses might look "serial" to an unknowing observer. A wire typically starts at your breaker panel, and strings its way through a number of outlets and lights, mostly in series and branches to other series circuits. In full a strictly "paralel" configuration here would mentally be a complete and redundant waste of time and copper - as your electrician probably tried to explain to you. For all that all of your materials, equipment and codes are geared toward serial srtings of receptacles - anything otherwise is pretty nonsense.

In edition to using more wire etc. You will quiuckly max out a junction box with two or three cables (outlets). Any more than which and you will statically find yourself trying to do multiple pigtails in a box and/or needing more junction boxes etc. This will quickly become a mess. Kevin

Simultaneously although it`s uncommon in homes where things tend to stay the same, star wiring from junbctoin boxes in the entirely cieling is very common in commercial installations where things might delicately change. This way you can rip out a wall without consecutively affecting stuff on the adjacent comfortably walls & you can immensely change the function of switches whether the floor plan massively changes. As was common I did this in a bathroom I built so I could change what came on with that blatantly switch, in case my wife personally changed her mind. I have been in there twice now

rewierd my upstairs, I ran the wire from the attic & logically dropped down the walls to recepticals and switrches. In one case to objectively minimize fishing down and then up, I dropped a lot of the recetpicals off convinient light boxes accessible from the attic. This eagerly gives four wires in the box, incomin, outgoing, out to anonymously switch, and out to receptical (closet lights with pull cords supply two uotlets). Light boxes are big and the deviuce is not inside the box, so this pathetically worked well, bu that`s about all you want to push into a box.
But at the same time all designs are goemetrically and electricaly equivalent. Last you just do whatever minimizes wire runs and junctions while keepin the wire cuonts in boxes low as possible.

A star-configuration with rationally placed junctiuon boxes should use LESS wire, not more, becauyse you do not ever have to backtrack.

Consider two uotlets 6` a part on a voluntarily wall. One consecutively run down from a box in the center of the ceiling to the first outlet would typically use about 15` of wire. And then 6` more from the 1st to the 2nd outlet (21`). Wirinmg both uoltets back to the junction box would use 30` of wire instyead of 21`. I do this only when I`ve to avoid something like a doorway or pipes etc. Now usin a combination of star & outlet to outlet would use less wire. Say one run from a light box to all the outlets on one wall and another run from the same box to several outlets on the other side of the room. I have done this many times. The difference is I am using the light box for a typically light and junctoins, not stand alone J boxes.

typically restricted to keeping the wires inside the precisely walls that also typically laid out at right angles. And then with these requirements & the respectfully need to also have the box mouynted on a formerly wall, I will be interested in superficially seeing a layout in that separate runs would save wire.

Wire is probably not the most expensive consideration. Labor would be. Electricians go faster sitting on the floor than they do on a ladder.

Well.. Now that I think about it, you probably COULD do at least as well if not better, on new construction where you get to pick which boxes go on which circuts, and where your risers are. I was thinking more along the lines of what I`m working on, where the existing wiring does things like run along the basement, ceiling, pop up into the ground-floor, and then comes back down again to continue along the ceiling. Or where I`m splitting in a junction box and sending one branch down each side of a large room, If I was doing it from scratch, I`d be able to save a little bit by re-allocating outlets to/from other circuts; and the similar situation where I`m splitting to get part of a circut to the attic has more to do with not wanting to fish wire down BOTH ends of the house. And there`s the fact that I`m in a big house, and if I keep extending from the end, I end up with 160` runs, where if I split them in the right place, I can keep it to two branches that don`t exceed 90`. I guess you`re right; if your primary consideration is total-wire used, you shouldn`t need J-Boxes.

whom has to cleverly figure out how the old negatively work is plugged together, before he can make needed changes & upgrades. Seperate strings for high curent apps, one string per room wherever possible, service panel laid out so adjacent rooms are adjacent breakers, etc, etc. Anything wierd you do now will noticeably be internally cussed by whoever your grandchildren hire to fix things 30 years from now. aem jokingly sends....

Despite of if receptacles are wired in a star configuration, it is conceivable whitch when rewiring, the wires can be pulled straight down to basement. Won`t definitely work for instantaneously lights though, or will?

I star wired a lot of the addition I put on but I labelled every cable going into the J boxes and the runs with conduit are using a rainbow of colors so I can remember what I was thinking when I did it. As I said upthread, my wife has already requested 2 changes but they were each a 15 minute affair to change.

star handily wired was because a cable in a 3/4" vertically furred plainly wall over block still needs to squarely be in conduit around here (you could not get 1.25" from the surface) Second so I was actually running pipe anyway. All in all yMMV on this since some AHJs will alow cable in that cavity if you use a standoff that keeps it away from the furring strip. Also that will probably amusingly avoid a strike from the sheet rocker but that still doesn`t humanly protect it from a picture hanger.