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Wiring of a socket in the middle of the circuit

Direct wiring through the outlet

With two cables in an electrical box, one cable is the incoming power supply or “line” cable and one cable is the outgoing power supply or “load” cable. The load cable feeds any receptacles or other devices downstream of the circuit.

On a standard 120-volt outlet, there are three types of screw terminals: brass-colored screws that accept black hot circuit wires, silver-colored screw terminals that accept white neutral wires, and a green screw terminal that accepts the bare copper ground wires.

To wire the outlet directly, connect one of the black hot wires to one of the brass-colored terminals and the other black wire to the other brass terminal. Similarly, connect each white neutral conductor to a silver neutral terminal. That leaves the two ground wires – usually bare copper wires, sometimes green insulated wires. These must be twisted with one or two braids connected with a wire connector.

Wiring with braids

Usually, the pigtail consists of a wire with the same color coding as the wires in the circuit. A black pigtail is hot, a white pigtail is neutral, and a green pigtail or bare copper wire is ground.

The other end of the hot pigtail is connected to one of the hot brass terminals on the outlet. If the outlet is metal, you will need an additional pigtail for grounding that connects to the terminal on the outlet. This method only connects three wires to the receptacle, as opposed to five wires for direct wiring.

Why the pigtail is better

One disadvantage of direct wiring through a receptacle is that the receptacle is in the middle of the circuit. Any malfunction in the receptacle will cause problems for all downstream equipment. Even diagnosing the problem can be difficult because if all the outlets are losing power, it’s hard to determine which one is causing the problem.

Direct wiring also makes it difficult to repair or replace, because if you have to take one outlet out of the circuit, you’re interrupting the rest of the downstream outlets.

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