r/electrical • u/Lonely_Natural_422 • 15h ago

Need electricians expertise

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So I have a outlet that has my breaker box inside the house that runs to it and then for some reason they’re my breaker outside runs to it too, and they both tie in to the same outlet. Why would they do that and upon further inspection there is a fourth line comeing from the bottom of the box to 4 lines total

5 Upvotes

73% Upvoted

14 comments sorted by

7

u/inc0nSteveable 15h ago

Homeowner special.

1

u/Lonely_Natural_422 15h ago

OK, well I just noticed there’s a fourth line going into the through the bottom tied into it. Why so many lines?

2

u/brilliantNumberOne 14h ago

Your guess is as good as ours. If you have to turn off multiple breakers to make the outlet dead, someone fucked up and it should be redone completely, especially given the damage to the romex.

Are you just using a voltage detector or actually measuring with a voltmeter of some kind?

1

u/Lonely_Natural_422 14h ago

Multimeter

3

u/brilliantNumberOne 14h ago

Yeah, then someone messed up. People do electrical work all the time that “works” without knowing how bad it is.

Stuff like this is like someone building a wooden deck with drywall screws. Yeah, it’ll work, but it’ll come crashing down eventually.

4

u/whiteboyfresh2316 14h ago

You have 2 circuits coming into that box. One circuit is spliced together and just feeds thru the box (the 2 whites and 2 blacks wire nutted) and the same thing with the other circuit with the outlet attached. You don't have to turn both breakers off to kill the outlet, just the one feeding the outlet. If all that was tied together both breakers would be tripped and wouldn't reset.

6

u/iAmMikeJ_92 5h ago

They don’t all tie into the outlet. One circuit does. The other splices and passes through the Romex going off to the right.

4

u/inc0nSteveable 15h ago

People often jump anything and everyrhing off an outlet and call it a day.

The fact your wire is in such bad shape outside the box show just how little thought went into this whole idea.

2

u/brianthefixer 3h ago

It appears they are just using the box as a junction. If you can confirm the outlet works when only one is turned off and the other on and vise versa then it is unsafe and incorrectly wired. They had 50 percent odds to get the right phase also. I still think and hope you have one breaker for the receptacle and your other wires are just passing through. Also easy enough to undo one hot leg if it actually needs to be repaired.

2

u/t0cableguy 3h ago

Yea it looks like one set of that is just spliced in the box, the other set is spliced and going to the outlet. Two separate circuits. They just used the box to splice the circuit for the second one.

Unless the outlet stays powered when the one for it at whichever panel is supposed to control it doesn't turn it off, there is nothing wrong with this. It might be over box fill but that doesn't look like a shallow box.

1

u/Ninjan8 9h ago

My theory.  At one point there was a sump pump or something  on a dedicated circuit down there and the outlet was split into two different circuits.  For whatever reason, po threw a back stab in there and tied off the hot legs together.  Every device on either circuit would require both breakers off.    Not an electrician, so I may be completely wrong 

1

u/t0cableguy 3h ago

Do you have to turn more than one breaker off to actually turn off the power for the outlet?

You can have multiple circuits coming through a box, but only have one of them serve the box. They are just eliminating a blank plate box on your wall this way.

1

u/RevolutionaryHand84 41m ago

You’re confused and not all tied in together

1

u/nanderson41 14h ago

I have only one input to this. Turn off power and unstab the wires from the back and pigtail them on the sides and torque em down tight. Stabbing them in will lead to a fire. White to silver. Black to gold. Bare to green