The white neutral wire is splice to each outlet so they share the return path. One of the most common wiring configurations your going to find with outlets are shown in the diagram below.
Wiring A Switched Outlet Wiring Diagram Electrical Online
Two wire outlet diagram. How to wire an electrical receptacle outlet or wall plug when there are just two wires hot and neutral but no ground wire. If the coating doesnt come off right away try clamping the stripper around the cable again. With either lead touching a ground wire bare copper touch the other lead first to the neutral terminals silver colored then to the hot terminals gold colored. With this wiring both the black and white wires are used to carry 120 volts each and the white wire is wrapped with electrical tape to label it hot. Any break or malfunction in one outlet will cause all the other outlets to fail. You can put your new outlet anywhere between these two studs.
I am running ground to outlets in an older house with only black and white wires. Wiring a 20 amp 240 volt appliance receptacle. In this diagram two outlets are wired in the same box with a separate 120 volt source feeding each. To wire multiple outlets follow the circuit diagrams posted in this article. This outlet is commonly used for a heavy load such as a large air conditioner. Pull the wire stripper toward the end of the cable to cut through the outer coating and expose the wires inside.
Some old wiring designs of this type have shared neutral conductors actually a form of multiwire branch circuits connected at unforeseeable points downstream of the receptacle. The red wire switched hot wire going to the outlet wires into the other side of the switch and the white wires neutral tie together to complete the return side of the circuit. Unscrew the outlet and use a voltage tester to double check that the power is off. Three wire cable runs into the box. The outlet should be wired to a dedicated 20 amp240 volt circuit breaker in the service panel using 122 awg cable. The diagram below shows the power entering the circuit at the grounded outlet box location then sending power up to the switch and a switched leg back down to the outlet.
Installing ground wiring for old 2 wire outlets electrical question. Can i run a line from the panel to one location then bring all of the grounds from the outlets on one circuit to that location and tie them all together there or do i have to run the ground to each outlet and splice each one in there. Multiple outlet in serie wiring diagram. Notice that these outlets have the tab removed from the hot side or brass side of the outlet which allows the top half of the plug to be controlled only from the switch. The black and red wires are both hot and each is connected to one of the receptacles. Clamp a wire stripper around the outlet end of the 104 cable so its 1 foot 30 cm from the end.
Two wire nongrounding circuits are often part of knob and tube wiring. For wiring in series the terminal screws are the means for passing voltage from one receptacle to another. This article explains that when there is no safe grounding conductor or ground wire at an electrical receptacle location you need to choose the proper receptacle type and make the proper wire connections for safety.