3

I’ve been replacing some damaged receptacles in my dining room and after inspecting all of them on the circuit it looks like they are all interconnected via parallel daisy chaining, but they form a loop via a junction box where the hots/neutrals/ground are pigtailed back to an upstream 20 amp gfci that sits above counter.

Why would these form a loop instead of one receptacle being the last one with no downstream (even if it meets back in that same junction box). These are 12/2 wires with 15 amp receptacles. Is there any benefit to this wiring scheme or is it wrong?

Wiring Sketch

Arthur Branham
  • 45
  • 6

1 Answers1

9

This is completely unusual for US wiring. If you have a "ring", then you must correct that. Possibly by just disconnecting one side of the "ring" from the GFCI permanently.

But: are you really sure that they are wired in a ring? The way to test would be to:

  • Disconnect one side of the "ring" from the back of the GFCI and test ALL the outlets.
  • Then disconnect that side, reconnect the other side and test all of the outlets again.
  • Finally, completely disconnect the "ring" entirely from the GFCI and test all of the outlets.

And here is how you interpret the results:

  • Any outlet that remains on during all three tests is not powered by this "ring".
  • Any outlet that remains on during BOTH the first AND second tests confirms you have a "ring".
  • If NO outlets remain on during BOTH the first AND second tests, then you don't have a ring. The extra wires probably mean that the circuit simply continues on somewhere else.
longneck
  • 21,448
  • 4
  • 52
  • 80