electrical, junction box

homey42

Hello, my question is, I'm remodeling my house. How many wires can safely be tied together. Sorry for my lack of terminology. Into my box I ran 1 hot and 3 other runs of wire going to other outlets/ switches. This was too much as it blew the breaker. At this point I seperated all 4 wires. I twisted the wires in sets of 2 and pigtailed them together. It seems to work. Is this code or acceptable, or do I need to do more. Thank you for any response.

jbfan

Breakers do not care how many wires you have connected.
You had a short that tripped the breaker.

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homey42

I thought 3 wires running off 1 (hot) was too much. By splitting the 4 into 2 groups and pigtailing them together seems to have worked. Thank you

electures

The only thing that limits the number of conductors under the wirenut is the installation instructions.

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joed

4 wires under wire nut is common. More than 4 is not unheard of. The number of wires under a wire not has NO EFFECT on whether a breaker trips . That is entirely determined by how much load you connect to those wires.
If separating the wires stopped the breaker from tripping then you had something wired wrong or the wire was somehow shorted to ground.

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homey42

Thank you for all responses. After I had wire nutted the 4 wires, I was near the open front of the box with a shop vac, it sparked and tripped, I reset the breaker and wiggled the wires, sparked again. It makes sense to me that it was a short. Then after splitting and reconnecting the wires, I took care of the area that shorted. I believe you all helped me with my answer.

gregzoll

A short is not when they spark. When you play with them, and they short, that means that you have a open, and the arcing is also burning the edge of the wire, which in turns causes other problems, due to the voltage spike. If you do not have a good connection, then yes you are going to have sparking from it.

Just to let you know, a Short causes breakers & fuses to trip, and happens when you connect opposite ends (ie white & black, or Black & ground) directly together, without any device between them. In other words, you wire nut the two leads of opposite colors, you have caused a short, and the breaker will not reset to allow operation.