Question about my current range hood.

Alan

As I tore out the soffit above the range hood I found a couple of interesting things, but the most interesting to me was the wire for the range hood. It looks to have been changed out from a 14 gauge wire to what LOOKS like it says 8-3 with ground, but the letters are not very good anymore.

The problem is this 8-3 or whatever-it-is-bigger-than-2-fingers only travels through the soffit, down the wall behind the cabinets, and then pokes out through the cabinet side where it junctions with another 14 gauge wire.

The data tag on the range hood says 120V 6.0A

Is that why the wire was "increased" ?

I want to eliminate some outlets in that side of the kitchen on the same circuit, and I need to temporary wire the range hood through a different route. I'm guessing whatever I do for temporary won't be any worse than what's already there if it's wrong.


Other interesting things just to note : mouse skeleton (yuck) hot wire up there, just capped with wire nuts (no access) piping for vent was torn out to run the new wire and never replaced. Found another odd looking plug that looks like it is specific to some type of equipment with a specific pin configuration, but there's nothing on it to identify the equipment that should go to it, so maybe i'll post a picture of that thing tonight for fun.

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Journeyman Plumber

TarheelTerp

The vent hood shouldn't need more than 14ga wire...
and that is usually shared off of the 15A lighting circuit.

Old(er) houses can and will have all sorts of odd things in attics.
Be careful. Be safe. TEST before you touch anything.

Alan

That's what I thought, but when I was testing with the breaker, it was odd that both wires in the soffit were on the same breaker, so I wasn't really sure why they would get rid of one, and pull a new (bigger) wire over a length that doesn't add up to much more than 6 or 8 feet.

Maybe some crackhead found a nice piece of 8-3 in a dumpster and decided to do an upgrade.

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Journeyman Plumber

Ironlight

Sounds from what you're saying that you're missing a few junction boxes (exposed or loose hanging wire-nutted splices?) which would indicate that this was NOT completed by an electrician. So it was probably the result of having some appropriate length of that particular wire on hand.

I'm guilty of using 12 gauge even when I don't need it simply because I have it lying around.