Electrical Question

[Greg in Maryland]

As always, a simple task turns into something far more complicated ....

I am trying to move and rewire a four outlet box. The box is served by two 15 amp breakers and a three wire line (Black, Red, White and ground). Why they did this is beyond me but it is what it is.

I want to separate the outlets and have a dedicated line to each breaker. Most of it is fairly simple and straightforward, wire the hot line into the breaker and combine the neutral/ground line into the metal bracket as is done with the rest of the lines.

The picture below is of my circuit panel and it appears that each neutral and ground wire is connected together in the metal strip just to the right of the bank of breakers. There are lots of open slots (or what ever they are called) do I just use an open one or is there some mysterious logic behind which slot to use?

I would rather do this right than wake up with a priest above me giving me last rights (If I wake up).

Thanks for any assistance you can give.

Greg

[phi1l]

The 3 wire line is to provide a both a positive & negative hot line, in addition to the neutral & ground. The power company likes you split the multiple heavy loads between the positive & negative sides of the 220V feed to you house. They may have don it that way to put a certain appliance (like a refrigerator or freezer) on it's own circuit, or it might just be load balancing. Wiring it that way also allows you to easily convert that box to 220V outlets if necessary. If I understand you correctly, you will need to run another 220V (3 wire + ground) line from the main box. In the 4 outlet box you will just have to remove the tab that connects the hot terminals on the double outlets, so that you can connect a hot wire to each outlet.

[master53yoda]

This was a fairly common practice and iin the past was within code, they current code no longer accepts this practice due to the possibility of overloading the neutral if the breakers are messed with.

The black is one leg of 110 the red is the other leg of 110. the white is the neutral and will carry the imbalance between the 2 loads. the bare or green is the ground. they will be connected to the same bus in the main panel but are not connected together in the receptacle box.

At pressent you have 2 15 amp separate circuits. if you want to extend the circuits from that box you would run 2 ea 14-2/g from the current receptacle box to the new receptacles ( two sets ) on one set you would tie the black to black and on the other set the black to red. the whites would connect to the neutrals and the grounds would all connect together. remember that both of the breakers must be off in the panel when working on this type of connection. also measure from the red to the black wires they must read 220 volts if the read zero they are connected to the same leg in the main panel and will still read 110 to neutral but when fully loaded the neutral will over heat.

If the above explanation does not make sense get an electrician because that type of connect can lead to major problems like a HOUSE FIRE.

good luck

[Mr__Bill]

If I understand you, you want to have two separate cables from the box to the panel for two separate 120V circuits. Then, yes, the white and ground go into the neutral bar wherever they will fit. I would follow the lead of the installer on style and location of doing this, ie. your results look like his. I would not have a 4 box at the end with 2 circuits in it. This may or may not be legal depending on your local laws, but from a practical point of view I would keep each circuit in it's own box, either a single or two gang box, one duplex outlet or two duplex outlets. If you are installing new wire now is the time to upgrade to two 20A circuits from the existing 15A, and as stated if you ever want to go to a 220V circuit put in a 3 wire with ground and cap off the extra, red, wire until needed.

Bill
disclaimer: I'm not an electrician, nor do I play one on TV. but I do play one at home and have yet to electrocute myself, perhaps more to luck than skill or knowledge.