What is the "right" way to join 7 different wires in a single electrical box?
Here's the situation. I opened up a four-gang light switch. There were four switches controlling five lights.
As expected, the four switches were interrupting the hot (black) wires.
The neutral (white) wires also went through this box.
The previous electrician had connected all the neutrals together–five lines going off to the lamps and the house neutral source–all told, 6 conductors. The solid copper wires were stripped about 1 inch, twisted together, and shoved in a wire nut that was probably intended to be used with about 3 conductors.
I had never seen 6 conductors twisted together like that.
I was replacing one of the switches with an RF switch so that I could control a patio light remotely from the car. The RF switch required neutral itself so that it could operate even when the circuit was open. So I had to add another pigtail from this neutral mess, and now there are seven neutrals all just twisted together in one big heap and shoved in a wire nut that was probably intended to be used with about 3 conductors.
Is there a "proper" way to do this or is this pretty much the state of the art?
Best Answer
You can get push-in connectors that can take up to 8 wires (assuming you have 14- or 12-gauge wire):
(Though there is some question about whether they're up to code. :)