I Am Sure I Broke The Wire Bending Radius Rule On This One

I NEED TO UPDATE MY ELECTRICAL PANEL. I FIND THAT SOME OF MY NEUTRAL AND GROUND  AND HOT WIRES ARE A BIT SHORT OF REACHING THE GROUNDING  BAR AND FOR THE BREAKERS. HOW DO I EXTEND THESE WIRES? CAN I ADD PIG TAILS TO EACH WIRE, USING WIRE NUTS?



Thanks in advance for any help or reply
      

I have 2 light switches in my entry and need to add a 3rd. So…I removed the old 2-space metal box and will be replacing it with a 3-gang old-work box.



      The issue I’m anticipating having is: The old knob & tube wires coming in aren't very long. As the locations of the openings for the wires in the 3-gang box is a bit different than the old box, I’m worried that the wires now won’t be long enough to now reach the light switches. So, my questions are...



 

   If I need to add 6” or so to some of these wires, is it okay to just splice a new piece of 14-gauge wire onto them?? I simply didn't know if you're allowed to do this.


If so, is this just a matter of using a plastic twist cap to connect them…with everything being done inside the new box?


  Thanks so much for your advice.
      

Installing a 4-ton condensing unit outside (240V, 1 ph, MCA= 26A, MOP= 45A).  There will be a HVACR rated 45A breaker at the panel.  Plan to install the 60A non-fused disconnect with GFCI recepticle (GE U065NA1010) next to condensing unit.  Plan to use #8 wire since distance from panel is 80 feet, but unsure of the number of wires.  How many conductors will be required since the disconnect will have a 120V GFCI recepticle.  Will I need 2 wires (2 hots and 1 ground) or 3 wires (2 hots, 1 neutral, 1 ground)?  I'm thinking #8 wire with 3 conductors (2 hots, 1 neutral, 1 ground).
      

Help!  We decided to raise the ceiling in our kitchen for some new taller cabinets. We have 30" cabinets with a 7' drop ceiling. By taking out the drop ceiling we can go to an 8' ceiling with 36" cabinets.  We just had the ceiling taken out and now I see I got a problem!



This is a 2 story home, the wall in question is a load bearing wall (runs through the center of the house) The main breaker panel is in this wall (the panel opening is in the adjacent family room)



As you can see in the photos I cannot extend the wall up because all of the home wiring is in the way!  I expected I might have to run longer wires but not this. 



Some ideas we've thought about...

notch the double 2x4s (not sure how much I need to notch or allowed to)



build a cove (box) and leave the wires like they are (might be an eyesore in our new kitchen)



put up a large crown moulding along the entire wall (would be the only crown moulding in the house)



extend the ceiling up 6-7" instead of 12" (should leave enough room for wire to stay)



I'm leaning to the notching option if I can find a way to reinforce that section.



Any ideas?



thanks!
      

Hi,



I would like to wire a switch to be able to cut the power to the ceiling mounted outlets that feed our garage door openers. Running new wiring to them will be a bit cumbersome, so I am hoping to avoid that. The ceiling outlets are powered by light fixtures in the garage (one near by each outlet). There is a 3 wire romex cable running from the light switch to the first light and another one between the lights, and then regular 2 wire romex cables from the light fixtures to the outlets. The red wires in the 3 wire cables to the lights are switchable, the black wires are always hot.



I mainly want to be able to cut the power to the doors when we are away on vacation, and the reason for that is that one night both doors somehow opened up - I have no idea why. I'd hate for that to happen when we're away. Unplugging and plugging in the openers is a bit of a hassle due to the high ceiling.



I thought about wiring in a switched outlet so that I could just reach up with a long handle of some sort and switch off the power to the outlet. It would not be ideal, but definitely easier than getting the ladder out and unplugging the door openers.  However, there is possibly another option that I'd like some input on if anyone cares to comment. I believe I could wire in a switch on the wall next to the light switch that would allow me to cut the power to the black wires in the 3 wire cables. This would cut the power to the ceiling outlets and anything downstream from there (possibly an outside light, I would need to check on that).



My question is, are there any potential issues with this sort of wiring? Is there perhaps any code violation if both hot wires in a 3 wire cable can be switched off separately?



Thoughts?
      

I was going to put this in this thread  Junction box in stud wall behind drywall?  but, decided to start a new one.



Two nights ago while sitting in my kitchen the can lights in my soffits above my cabinets suddenly went out. At first I thought my daughter or her boyfriend was messing with me and reached around the corner and flipped the switch. Nope. Tried the other switch near me and nothing. Everything else in the kitchen worked.



Thinking tripped breaker for a moment...nope other lights work on the circuit. Can't be 6 CFL's burnd out at the same time. Hmmmmm?



Background:

Kitchen was remodeled 12 years ago. Drywall was in good shape so not removed. Added circuits for Fridge, Microwave, Garbage disposal, Stove (gas),Dishwasher, range hood, and countertop recepts. None of these are tied to lights. Original task lighting was 4' tubes over countertops above cabinets. Remodel added sofits and can lights from these two feeds



Started tracing circuit path to look for loose/broken wire. Found no power at lights. Checked power at breaker...Good. Follow wire to kitchen, no junctions. Wire disapears up into wall below the switch area. Check for power at switch box. Yep, power there. Power off and pigtail Neutral/hot  wires at a can light together. No continuity on the load side of the switch circuit. Broken wire somewhere between the switch and the lights. Fortunaly there is an attic space above the kitchen. Unfortunatly, it is a short headroom ~3' or less and full of blown ihn insulation. In I go to trace the wire.  after about 10 min up there I found the burried junction box. At some time in the past there used to be a single light in the center of the "U" shaped kitchen cabinets. This was abandoned and the box was drywalled over...still in the location for the light hookup so the cover was not readily accessable. found a tightly twisted Ground, Neutral and Hot with nuts. All looked good untill I Started messing with them. found that one of the hot leads had broken right at the insulation on the wire. Looking at it closer I could see some arc burn at the break. I am thinking that when the handy hack that did the job nicked the wire he did not know or care and tristed it together anyway. It took over, to my best guess, 20 years for it to fail.



Moral... It can happen
      

I have installed several GFCI breakers and every one had the neutral wire connected to the light colored and white paint marked terminal.

However a friend gave me a Siemens QPF 120 breaker and the load Power is not marked. On the side of the breaker, the pigtail is marked Panel Neutral and the terminal above this is marked Load Neutral. The other terminal which I assume is for the Hot, has a white paint marking and the screw is only slightly darker then the other. The white paint has me confused.

How do I wire this breaker?
      

Hi all, this is my first post, so...my kitchen was just renovated and the electrical outlets are on the walls and I wanted them in plugmold under the cabinet. Why didn't it happen?  Long story, but I'm doing it myself now.  The electrical receptacles are on 2 separate circuits with a gfci receptacle on each and neither circuit has a receptacle outside the kitchen where I can put the gfci's, so I'm putting gfci breakers in the panel instead. I've run into a different problem on each circuit that'd like some advice on.



Circuit 1: this is a 20 amp circuit.  I have to plug this circuit's neutral wire into the gfci breaker, but I couldn't see which neutral wire matched the hot wire (buried in mess of wires) and I don't have a continuity tester so I just pulled one neutral at a time (tedious) until the circuit failed, but it never failed. So I did this again for every neutral...same result. This circuit shares a few boxes with other circuits so I'm wondering if the neutrals on different circuits are tied together somewhere, and if so I'm pretty sure, but not completely, that that's not going to work with the gfci breaker.  So I didn't install that gfci breaker since I'm not confident it would actually gfci (yep i verbified gfci).  What do you think?



Circuit 2:  this is a 20 amp circuit.  This circuit currently has the refrigerator, gas stove and range hood, and then a gfci in front of 3 electrical receptacles, which already sounds bad since I thought the kitchen receptacles required 2 dedicated circuits. I replaced that breaker with no problem, but it tripped after a few minutes and continued to trip every few minutes. I haven't changed anything else on that circuit yet and it's never tripped before, but now it is, so I put the old breaker back for now. The current gfci receptacle is only protecting the 3 outlets since the appliances are ahead of it. I know you wouldn't normally want the appliances gfci protected, so do you think the refrigerator motor may be a problem?  Do I need the appliances on a separate circuit?  What would you suggest I do?



Thanks, and if you're wondering "why all the effort?", it's partly because I'm meddlesome, partly because I'm bored, and partly because the backsplash tile is to be on showcase, not the electrical receptacles.
      

I have a tankless hot water heater with the following requirements:

Voltage/Freq:240v/60

Wattage:21kw

Max amp load: 88

Min req circuit breaker: 2x60

Min wire size: 2x8 AWG copper (note:should be 2x6)



Amps to house is 200. Breaker box is 10 years old with space to add new breaker. The old 30 breaker will come out, new 2x60 in, and new wiring will need to be run approx 15 feet to location of old water heater.



Initial quotes from electricians via phone are all over the place and I have someone coming to house on Friday for a site estimate. In my understanding, the work is straight forward as stated above. What am I missing? Or what might the electricians be thinking I am not (besides pulling a $40 permit)?
      

I have a small 19 gallon water heater in a small garage space, that was installed by some questionable handymen a few months back.  I just had the plumbing and septic finished so tested the hot water, only to find the element was already burned out.



I noticed however, that this 120v unit is wired via 10 gauge wire to a 30 amp double breaker.  This is questionable because I thought a 120v appliance would be wired to a single pole on the hot wire and run neutral to the neural panel area.



My question is, can I run the hot wire out of one side of the double breaker without safety issues, or should I definitely replace it with a single pole breaker?



I would normally not question the work, but everything these guys did already had to be adjusted, so I'm only naturally assuming this may need to be also.



If its safe, I would like to simply things and just connect the one hot and leave an open space in the other half of the double pole... Is this possible?



Thanks for your advice-