Hello,
I wall mounted a TV, and wanted to place an electrical outlet right up behind the TV for a cleaner look. So, I decided to tap on the power outlet below the TV, and did make the connection.
However, the gang box (from which I taped the connection) is really cramped. There are 3 wires in it already (the original + 2 others going to different outlets in the basement). Adding the wire for the TV outlet increased it to 4.
What worse, the previous worker cut the wires so short that I have little room for wire nuts that can hold all 12 wires (4 black, 4 white, 4 ground) + the pigtail.
Ideally, it would be better to just rerun the 3 wires, leaving enough in the gang box for the connections. But this would be too much work, and I think would involve cutting my dry wall to do the runs. So I am thinking of an alternative to clean up the box. I am not too comfortable having all those wires cramped in there with the wire nuts.
1. One option is that I attach one pigtail to each wire to extend it, and then use additional pigtail to connect all the wires to the outlet screws. but I am wondering if that would not be too many wire nuts?
2. Is there any type of connector that can splice and extend the original wires neatly?
3. If I can do two, the one option I think of is to get a slightly deeper gang box, and use Wago Wall Nuts to connect all of them.
I will appreciate your thoughts on any of these plans, and possible suggestions to achieve my goal.
thanks, Oyiwaa
I wall mounted a TV, and wanted to place an electrical outlet right up behind the TV for a cleaner look. So, I decided to tap on the power outlet below the TV, and did make the connection.
However, the gang box (from which I taped the connection) is really cramped. There are 3 wires in it already (the original + 2 others going to different outlets in the basement). Adding the wire for the TV outlet increased it to 4.
What worse, the previous worker cut the wires so short that I have little room for wire nuts that can hold all 12 wires (4 black, 4 white, 4 ground) + the pigtail.
Ideally, it would be better to just rerun the 3 wires, leaving enough in the gang box for the connections. But this would be too much work, and I think would involve cutting my dry wall to do the runs. So I am thinking of an alternative to clean up the box. I am not too comfortable having all those wires cramped in there with the wire nuts.
1. One option is that I attach one pigtail to each wire to extend it, and then use additional pigtail to connect all the wires to the outlet screws. but I am wondering if that would not be too many wire nuts?
2. Is there any type of connector that can splice and extend the original wires neatly?
3. If I can do two, the one option I think of is to get a slightly deeper gang box, and use Wago Wall Nuts to connect all of them.
I will appreciate your thoughts on any of these plans, and possible suggestions to achieve my goal.
thanks, Oyiwaa