Too many Wires! Help with new wall outlet

[Nate Nagel]

Well, when someone says "split receptacle" I'm thinking one that has had the little tab broken out of it, usually for a lamp, not an Edison circuit. But that may just be me...

nate

[bob haller]

When a marginally knowledgable person stumbles on to a electrical mystery, with a box that will be jammed when they are done adding a outlet to a already full box the easiest thing.

Forget about the mystery, since at best it will be overfull......

Its far easier to add a box close by fed from a convenient location.

Boxes and wire are pretty cheap. Far cheaper than calling a electrician.

I have some friends who were tough to deal with. They re arranged their kitchen and tried to insist on moving outlets to save $$$.

I said if you want me to do this job and remember I am FREE, then you are buying the necessary supplies!

They were unhappy but not stupid. They papered over one blank box to save the cost of a blank plate, if I had known I would of given them one.......

Espically when dealing with old work running a new wire and outlet is often the easiest solution.

My moms house had a dead outlet:( I checked it out and somehow the black wire right where it entered the box had broke off.... With only a tiny bit showing I wire nutted it and put a blank plate over the now empty box.

Then installed a nice new box and outlet a foot away. Not only was it more convenient, but a far easier job that I knew would last forever since the home was being sold...

Incidently I did lots of work the home inspectors passed everything:)

Except the first buyers inspector flagged the lack of GFCI on the garage sump pump. The deal fell thru for other reasons....... But I added the GFCI.

Home buyer number 2 had his inspection, and flagged the electrical for ONE thing, claimed the same garage sump pump shouldnt be on a GFCI:(

[clare]

Code in Canada requires "splits" on kitchen countertops One circuit on the top, one on the bottom - so you can plug in the toaster and the tea kettle without blowing a fuse.. Say "split" to any Canadian electrician and they know exactly what you are talking about. By googling "split receptacle" I'm guessing every Yankee electrician would also know what you meant.

[nestork]

Blurb continued...

Now, up until now we've been saying that the black and red wires in your house carried fresh voltage and current sine waves from the electrical panel and that the white wire carried the used voltage and current back to the electrical panel.

If you stop to think about it, if the black voltage and current supply sine wave is 180 degrees out of phase with the red voltage and current sine waves, then they SHOULD cancel each other out perfectly where they come together in the white wire. And that would mean that there should be NO voltage OR current at all in the white wire. That is, if the voltage sine wave is at +120 volts in the red wire, it should be at -120 volts in the black wire at the same time, so what would be the voltage when those sine waves meet in the white wire? +120 -120 =

0, or zero voltage in the white wire. And, the current in the white wire would also be zero because you can't have current without a voltage to drive that current.

If the world was perfect, and Lassie didn't kill chickens, and all electrical loads were purely resistive, like light bulbs, toasters, electric ranges and coffee makers, then the voltage and current sine waves from the two power supply wires would indeed cancel each other out, and there would be theoretically be ZERO voltage and ZERO current in the white wire.

However, in the real world there are electric motors and television sets and computer monitors, all of which have some "impedance". In an electric motor, for example, the magnetic fields created by the electric motor windings impeded the flow of current through those same motor windings, so the motor windings themselves cause the current sine wave coming out of the motor to lag behind the applied voltage sine wave. In television sets and those old CRT style computer monitors you have huge capacitors. In a capacitor, the current OUT of the capacitor is highest when the CHANGE in voltage is highest, and that occurs when the voltage sine wave passes through the point of ZERO voltage. So capacitors cause the current sine wave coming out of those computer monitors and TV sets to be out of phase with the applied voltage sine wave as well.

So, even though the red and black wires carry equal and opposite

110 AC voltage sine waves, the impedance of "reactive" loads like electric motors and TV sets cause timing differences in the resulting current sine waves coming out of those loads. As a result, the current and voltage sine waves generally DON'T cancel out in the white wire, and there can be significant voltages and currents in the white wire as a result. So, to be safe, treat the white wire as having dangerous voltage in it too.

[Metspitzer]

Why do you think the box is blanked up? Do you think it might be because the original installation could have been a switched receptacle that has been removed?

If there was room for the outlet then, don't you think there will be room for an outlet now?

[The Daring Dufas]

Trying to steal my material there Stormy? I had to use "The Jesus Method" the other day on a job. It's fun to scare people and listen to the wires slapping the conduit when they jump around inside it. ^_^

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

news: [e-mail]:

I have trouble getting a lot of guys to understand 3 and 4 way switch wiring or even isolated ground receptacles for electronic gear power. o_O

TDD

[generic]

Actually, the OP should use the special tool made for inexperienced homeowners who want to do wiring, but dont know how. The tool is called a telephone book. Go to the "E" pages, find the word "electrician", and call one of them.

[Doug Miller]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

"Split receptacle" in NO WAY implies an Edison circuit. It's common to have one half of a duplex receptacle controlled by a wall switch, and the other half unswitched -- with both halves being on the same 120V circuit.

[Doug Miller]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

news: [e-mail]:

It's been pointed out to you before -- more than once -- that you make the mistake of assuming that what is Code in Canada is Code everywhere. Yet you continue to repeat that same mistake, over and over and over.

[trader4]

com:

ve one half of a

hed -- with both

+1

[trader4]

That simplification works until you come across the first 240V circuit or an Edison circuit.

Actually for almost all the 120V circuits, it does come from the panel on the black or red and goes back on the the white. Exception would be any Edison circuits.

There are a lot of older 3 wire 240 volt receptacles out there too.

 Normally the ground wire terminal will be easy to identify

You could have one outlet or 10 outlets powered by either hot leg, the above makes no sense.

 Since

Forget about motors, which just complicate matters even more. Even with purely resistive loads, for there to be zero current in the neutral, the loads have to be EQUAL.

It's not the VOLTAGE that counts, it's the CURRENT. If the two loads on each hot leg are not equal, then you have current flowing in the neutral. You're always going to see a 120V sine wave.

the impedance of "reactive"

[trader4]

I think you're right that he'll wind up with too much stuff per code for that box, assuming it's a small one, typical for a single outlet. He could install a larger box at that location. Or run a romex from that box to a new receptacle box nearby.

[trader4]

It's getting stranger.....

Assuming there is even a black and a red in most circuits. Again, unless it's 240V, or an Edison circuit, which usually is not the case, you only have one hot. Absent that, the current in the black and white are equal.

 And that would mean that

Again, only if the loads on each leg are exactly equal. Put a toaster on one and a 50W bulb on the other and you have current flow in the neutral.

Yes, that can effect the current in the neutral, but the bigger and more easily understood effect is that for the current in the neutral to be zero, the loads, even if purely resistive, have to be equal. And the above only applies in a 240V circuit or an Edison circuit.

In the circuits in the typical home, most of the neutrals have large currents flowing in them, because they are

*not* Edison circuits. They consist of only one hot and one neutral coming from the panel. The current in the white (neutral) wire is EQUAL to the current in the black (hot) wire. If you plug in a hair dryer, you have 10 amps flowing in both of those wires.

[Doug Miller]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news:1d944754-6207-433b-8c71- [e-mail]:

You're probably fighting an uphill battle here, trader. You're entirely correct, and nestork is way off the mark, but you're not going to convince him of that: it sounds to me like nestork is probably an electronics engineer -- and in my experience, most electronics engineers don't understand jack-sh*t about residential electrical wiring.

[bud--]

nuts off safely, so your test meter has bare wires to contact.

telling if you got the right breaker. You won't know when the power is off.

than one breaker. It's not impossible that the red and black wires are on separate circuits. They shouldn't be, but still could be.

In the US, the NEC did not require common disconnect for a multiwire branch circuit. (An Edison circuit is a multiwire, but a multiwire can be 3-phase.) Then the NEC required a common disconnect for multiwire that supplied a split wired receptacle - one circuit to each receptacle. Now the NEC requires a common disconnect for any multiwire branch circuit.

I have not seen many split wired receptacles with 2 circuits, but they are around, most likely in kitchens. Elsewhere likely half the receptacle is switched.

If the wire is actually #12 it could be to supply a 220V receptacle. I suspect it is #14.

[RBM]

I've only ever seen split receptacles with two circuits in a few commercial locations. Typically 120 volt on top and 240 volt on bottom, and in a few commercial kitchens with typical Edison wiring, but before GFCI protection was required. With GFCI regulations, it would be a little expensive for a residential application.

[Metspitzer]

I think Canada has the right idea. The US could require adjacent outlets to be on a different circuit. Two circuits for the kitchen but alternate them. It would be nice to be able to tell by looking at the outlets which circuit they were on. I would use different colors, but no one has ever accused me of being an interior decorator.

[RBM]

nuts off safely, so your test meter has bare wires to contact.

telling if you got the right breaker. You won't know when the power is off.

than one breaker. It's not impossible that the red and black wires are on separate circuits. They shouldn't be, but still could be.

You would have a red wire at any switch location that has a feed and return

[DerbyDad03]

That happens to be what I have, but not by any great design planning.

When I moved in, there weren't enough receptacles in the kitchen for my setup (coffee maker, toaster oven, unobstructed receptacles for the coffee grinder or blender, etc.)

It just so happened that adding an "every other receptacle" worked out great. I put them on their own circuit because it was easier to just run all new Romex and I had the space in the panel.

No, they are not color coded and yes, each run is protected with a GFCI as the first receptacle in the chain.