We just bought a house and saw a room that used to have half hot wired for all the outlets. It was converted over so both plugs of the outlet are hot all the time. However, the way it was wired, there are two hot wires going into each of the outlets. This is fine because the tabs are removed between the outlets. However, there is one outlet where the tab is not removed (pictured) — probably a recently replaced outlet where they forgot to remove the tab. Neutral tab also not broken. Neutrals continue on to other outlets.
I removed the tab but I still have two questions:
- Is this dangerous?
- Does this mean there is 220 volts to this outlet if the tab is not removed?
EDIT UPDATED IMAGE:
Best Answer
Remove the tab in the center receptacle and you should be all set. Or you could just remove the red pigtail from that receptacle and also, you'd be all set.
The problem right now is that you have a redundant current path on the hot side. The red wire is spliced to the black wire, so they are from the same circuit and in the same potential (i.e. in the same phase). If they were from different circuits, this situation would be a lot worse. Eliminate the redundant path and you're good.