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/diy/ - Do It Yourself

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2557546 No.2557546 [Reply] [Original]

I tore down the wall in my garage to replace some termite damaged studs and while the wall is opened up I've decided to add an outlet. Problem is I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to electrical. My house also isn't up to code. I have a 1947 house with half the electrical being the original black cloth sheathed wire with Romex spliced into the newer additions. My garage is currently all 14/2 romex. All I'm trying to do with add an outlet between these two light switches.

Am I able to just cut the romex below the lightswitches and slap an outlet in there or do I need to run a new cable from the line in using pigtails? I have a roll of 12/3 cable to work with if I need to add.

The line in runs into the ceiling of the garage and feeds two light fixtures if that is important.

>> No.2557548

I forgot to add. The dots on the lightswitches represent the screws and color and the yellow dot is a wire nut.

>> No.2557735

>>2557546
This is a 3 way switch loop. Power comes in to the left switch and is switched between two travelers to the next switch, and is returned to the white wire which goes to the light. You cannot put a receptacle here because you don't have a neutral. You would have to find the light that the cable goes back to and tie into the constant power and the neutral.The constant power will be what the black wire in the cable is hooked to and the neutral will be one of the white wires connected to the light. The neutral connection on the light will be a white fixture wire, a silver screw, or whichever wire connects to the base of the lampholder.

>> No.2557742

>>2557735
This helps a lot, thanks.

>> No.2557849

>>2557742
Look faggot, I was just trying to be helpful. If you want to be a sarcastic prick then take your question somewhere else

>> No.2558127

>>2557849
You might want to try this in a thread with more than 2 unique posters next time.

>> No.2558209

>>2557546
Basically you're going to have to take that wire nut on the wite from the line in and tie another white to that to go to your outlet. Might as well add a 3-way wire nut on the incoming black as well, and then you have a single point of origin for the romex to your outlet.

If you want to do it the "right way" then now is the time to install a little junction box for your pair of 3-way wire nuts.

After that, you can use your outlet as the feed point for anything else you might want to add in the future. So like if you wire that in to the left side of your new outlet, then you can tap the next thing into the right side of the new outlet and just keep daisy chaining like that. That way you don't have to pony up for bus bars in place of your 3-way wire nuts. Wire nutting more than three wires starts to get messy.

You could also put the outlet between the line in and the rest of everything, in which case you no longer need any wire nuts. But then if you want to add anything else down the road you'll need a junction box again (unless your outlet is one of those kinds that actualluy has four sets of terminals, making it effectively a 4-way wire nut for you)