Junction Box Woes

[Steven]

I recently added a Hunter ceiling fan in a new installation in my basement (has a drop ceiling). I cut the line servicing the wall outlets for the back half of our basement and then pigtailed a line to run power to the ceiling fan.

I just wired together all three blacks, all three whites, and all three grounds. I didn't connect the grounds to the junction box.

I now have power in all the outlets between the panel box and my cut and power to the ceiling fan, but there are 4 more outlets after the cut that no longer have power. I figured that wiring all three segments together would maintain the continuity of the circuit downstream from the cut, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Any ideas or suggestions to fix my screw up will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Larry Caldwell]

Your plan was good but your craftsmanship was lousy. Take the wire nuts apart and connect all three wires under the nut.

Did you use a wire nut with adequate capacity for the three wires? Where did you get enough slack to wire nut the cut run? If you pulled slack from somewhere, go find where you pulled it from. Cutting into a run requires installing two junction boxes, pulling the cut back into them, and adding an extra length of wire between them.

[Paul A]

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That is the way to do it. Something is damaged in the wires going to the outlets. Either one of the wires at the junction box is bad (perhaps you nicked it when you were stripping it), or something further down came loose, Did you pull a lot on the wire to get enough slack to install the junction box?

If you have an outlet tester (the ones with three lights -- they are inexpensive and very useful) or a test light check from hot to neutral and from hot to ground to see if you have an open neutral or an open hot.

[Beowulf]

I thought I had done that already, but I'll re-do the connections ensuring that I entwine all three strands.

I'll have to check. I didn't figure there would be any special considerations with the sort of junction I was doing. I just got a bag of wire nuts from Lowes.

I ran the cut portions into the junction box and then added about a 5 inch long section onto the end to give me the slack I needed. I'll get a second junction box to do it right, though.

I didn't pull slack, primarily because there wasn't any to pull. The wire was stapled to the joists in the ceiling and didn't have any excess wire anywhere that I could reach. The slack was had, as noted above, by adding wire to the cut ends inside the junction box.

Thanks for the clarification. It makes perfect sense now that you say it, but I hadn't thought of that.