Timeline for answer to Electrical wiring shared neutral? by Jim Stewart
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| yesterday | comment | added | Sawtaytoes | @JimStewart, I believe you are correct, but I don't know for sure. As far as I understand, it only affects the lighting circuits, but only my dad has been in the outlet boxes. Some light circuits control outlets. I also remember, my dad was replacing an outlet in the office, and while we turned off the power, the living room lights started flashing when he was disconnecting a wire. That one outlet looks like it was put after the house was built, so I dunno. While only the low-amperage light circuits might be like this, it's possible other circuits were done in this "save on cabling" way. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Edwin | That's a good call-out. If there is only three wires in the panel and the two hots are connected to different legs, then you can have too much current through the one neutral. From the OPs description, there are two neutrals in the panel, but they are connected together in the switch boxes. | |
| yesterday | comment | added | Jim Stewart | Based on the wiring diagram the OP shows it may be that whoever wired the house was saving money on cable for lighting circuits with 3-way switches. Perhaps the shared neutrals are limited to the lighting parts of circuits and maybe even to pairs of 3-way switches. If so, then the immediate risk is lower than if receptacles were wired with shared neutrals. Modern LED lighting much less powere than old incandescent. This possibly fixed by doing away with one 3-way switch in each case. This would reduce functionality, but perhaps this could be restored with a few modern 3-way remote switches. | |
| yesterday | history | edited | Jim Stewart | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| yesterday | history | edited | Jim Stewart | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| yesterday | history | edited | Jim Stewart | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| yesterday | history | answered | Jim Stewart | CC BY-SA 4.0 |