My fiancé and I just bought a house, and in the process of the remodel have discovered that whole thing needs to be rewired. My question is, is it against code to have romex run up to the outlets after being wire nutted in a junction box? Or do you have to run a feed line and a return line?
Not sure about Ill codes and rules. It used to be that conduit was required meaning no romex. That could have changed. However, for AC there is no such thing as a return line.
I'm not completely sure what your asking. I think it will be different in each state. Here we can junction off a box and run new wire. The junction box has to have a cover and you have to be able to access it at any time. Meaning that you can't bury it in the wall. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
I'm not sure what you're asking for sure either. Most places follow the NEC. Warning, the NEC book can be a bit confusing...especially if you are trying to look up grounding rules. Residential (non-commercial) is normally ok to use romex. It must be fastened every 4' and within 6" (I think it's 6" anyway) of any box. All splices must be done in an accessible box, and if it's a j-box it must have a cover. I'm really unsure what you mean by a "feed line and return line". Most home outlets, except bathroom, kitchen, dedicated circuits are 15 amp, meaning 14-2 Romex w/ground is normally used.
I worded that wrong, I’m sorry. What I meant was can I wire nut one line going up to say an outlet, or do I have to have one going up to tie into one side of said outlet and then one line coming back down?
No you don't have to run the outlets in series. You can have one junction box and have multiple outlets run out of it. You just have to not over load the circuit. Here I believe you can run up to 12 outlets off one circuit/breaker per code. Maybe different in your county. Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk
If you are in Illinois and you're trying to do it yourself; then your answer to "is it against code...." is almost certainly yes.
If you have to ask you should probably hire an electrician. Electricity is one thing you don’t wanna try and figure out how to do by trial and error. Also if you ever have an electrical fire (even if it is unrelated to the work you did) and any of the work was done without proper permits and/or licenses then your insurance will likely have a reason to deny your claim (can’t say for sure that’s the case in IL but it is in NC). And if it’s a major claim then the insurance company will find out as there are a tens or even hundred(s) of thousands of reasons for them to put a lot of time into looking for and finding anything that could void the claim. Also, the little seemingly insignificant details are what will get you as far as code is concerned - where and how often do you have to secure (ie staple) the romex, downrating wire due to distance, GFCI/AFCI requirements, anti nail/drill plates on studs penetrations, maximum total bends on conduit, etc
What Holt said. Yes, you can just run a new set of wires from a j-box up to an outlet, as long as it's the same size wire and you make sure the hot, neutral, and ground are all from the same feed romex. You can run into problems if there is more than one circuit using the j-box, you wouldn't want to tie in to a hot from one circuit yet use the neutral from another for example. Also realize that just wiring "color to color" will not work if there are switch legs, or travelers involved from a 3-way, you need to know for sure what each wire actually is. I don't care to wire into one side of an outlet and then continue the circuit on by coming back out the other side, I'd rather pig-tail wires to the outlet so if the outlet fails everything else downstream doesn't lose power. If the above doesn't really make sense, then I'd highly suggest you take opossumhunterNC's advice and get an electrician involved. It sounds like the need to rewire is an unexpected need and therefore not in the budget I'm sure, but sometimes you can find an electrician that is willing to do the job "on the side", which can save on labor cost, but in most states an electrician that does this needs to have a contractors license and be licensed and insured to legally do so.
Beware that not every electrical inspector interprets the code the same. To use Mod-it's example above. One inspector absolutely refused to allow wire nuts in the outlet box. Meaning that you HAD to use the outlet to continue the circuit. You also had to use bonding crimps to connect the grounds together. Yet, the other inspector was OK with the way most people would wire the circuit. Pigtail and wire nuts.
Never heard of this before and I've been a master electrician and inspector in Wi for 10 years. Wire nuts are an acceptable means of wire connection. Additionally, the pigtail was the method preferred in industrial situations for the reason mentioned by mod-it.
It's a problem for the DIY people who know enough to wire a circuit and know there are limits but are not intimately knowledgeable on the electric codes. If you are not a master electrician, the know it all inspectors will not approve your work and your project grinds to a halt. The above situation happened to a friend of mine. My grandfather was a master electrician as well. He had already retired from his day to day job when I was a kid but still had his own business. I got to help him do the "dirty" work of pulling wire through attics and basements. Loved watching him go toe to toe with this one particular inspector. Gramps used to ride his a@@. His favorite retort was "how did you get this job? You know nothing. That's right! Your daddy is an alderman"
^^^ That didn't take very long to cook! At work one time a Red-tailed hawk knocked out one of our substations. When it landed on one of the feed wires it's wing contacted another. Pretty burned up. It had a 52" wing span.
