OT- sorta, house wiring question, u guys r smart!

This is not really a welding question but you guys are electrical geniuses so i'm sure you can field this one. Hey everybody, here's my question: I needed to tap in to an outlet temporarily. The outlet is in a series, so I bypassed the outlet and wire nutted three 12g wires together (3power, 3neutral, 3ground) and "hid" them in the box. I screwed the outlet back in the box disconnected. The reason I did this is because I'm having my service changed and my kitchen was remodeled with a new dishwasher and I don't have a dedicated breaker for this appliance. Once it's installed and inspected, I am going to run it to it's dedicated breaker. So in short, will joining three 12 g wires with wire nuts in an outlet box cause a potential fire?

walt

Reply to
wallster
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The reason such splices are *required* to be done in a junction box is because they *can* cause a fire if the connection isn't really sound. In other words, the box isolates the potentially (thermally) hot connection from combustible materials in the wall.

If you are confident that you can make electrically sound wire nut connections, and you know that the circuit is of sufficient ampacity to handle the load you're putting on it, then what you're doing should be safe.

Those are a couple of big ifs. Be sure you know the answers before attempting this.

Gary

Reply to
Gary Coffman

If I'm reading this correctly, you have the original 12 ga line in, the original 12 ga line out, and a new 12 ga line out of the connection box.

The only real concern is that the dish washer has a fairly high starting current and you will see lamps on the rest of the circuit flicker. You may also trip the circuit breaker frequently, depending on what other loads are connected to that circuit.

Dick W

Reply to
Dick Wollt

The dishwasher works fine. This is only a temp thing, my new panel will be in in a couple of weeks. It's fed from a 20amp breaker and i haven't popped the breaker yet. I more or less am using that outlet box as a junction but i have never seen more than two 12ga wires wire nutted together. I have checked with a few friends that are electricians and they checked it out for me as well. Thanks for the response. walt

Reply to
wallster

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