3 Cables Entering 1 Receptacle Box?
The lights in the living room and hall were flickering, and it was driving me crazy – finally traced to a receptacle in the living room that has three cables entering this box, and the receptacle was pigtailed to these – so that 4 wires were secured in 2 wire nuts, one set of black and one set of white. One black wire had come loose and that was causing the intermittent connection. Ground wires are also present.
It seems odd to me that so many wires are going into one receptacle box – why is everything joined here? I’ve seen the configuration for middle-of-run and end-of-run receptacles, and this is different. Is this an unsafe configuration? Thanks!!
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I am assuming that these wires are 14/2 and yes it is common for this type of installation in many areas. As long as the box is not over loaded by the cubic inch rating and what the NEC allows for this for total number of calculations per the NEC then this is common.
I would pigtail everything with wire nuts as mich as I could and not depend on the screws for my connections. Providing you do not overload the box again.
Many contractors use device boxes as junction boxes but we do not in our practice. We use wire nuts and or device boxes such as in switches or places that are marked by our as built blueprint just for this reason. So we do not have call backs and people complaining bout flickering lights etc.
common,maybe a recept on either side of this recept ,then feeding a ligt switch,outside recept,feeding a recept in another area,so many possabilitys
depending on cubic inches of the box (which determines how many and what gauge wires)can be in a box ……its sounds like its pro installed …..up to code..
no it is not unsafe it is the modern way of wiring according to the 2009 NEC code the continuity of a branch circuit shall not be dependent upon a wiring device( receptacle) it is much safer than the old daisy chain way of wiring which can cause connection problems and fires, as for too many cables running in a box, 4 12-2 are not too many we use a box-fill calculation from the NEC.