I'm replacing some old wiring in my house and have happened upon a few scenarios where I need some advice. Shared Neutral In a couple of places I have found that 2 different circuits (of the same Amp) share a neutral in an unusual way to me. In one case, circuit 1 splits into two branches that I'll call 1a & 1b. Only the hot wire for circuit 1b continues to a junction box that is shared with circuit 2. At that point, circuit 1b shares a neutral with circuit 2. So basically circuit 1 has one path for the hot wire back to the circuit breaker, but two different paths for the neutral depending on whether you are on 1a or 1b. In another case, circuits 3 & 4 share a neutral initially. They split at a junction box that also contains circuits 5 & 6. At this point, circuit 5 shares the neutral from circuit 3, but circuit 4 is connected to the neutral from circuit 6. (I may have not articulated this one correctly, but you get the idea.) Is this acceptable? At a minimum is certainly makes it harder to figure out the circuits. Shared Ground The house has conduit (EMT) and was originally grounded thru each box. As I'm replacing wire there will be a few areas where it will be difficult to run a new ground wire. In these instances, can I share a ground wire between 2 circuits of the same Amp? In one case, the circuit that I want to do this is a branch circuit off of an existing circuit that will share a ground wire with a different circuit w/ground wire. Ok, I have one more question. An electrician installed a new circuit for my new central A/C. In one area with not much room to work, the wire (NM-B 10/2) is not secured and lies on the copper hot water pipe coming out of my water heater. Will the heat from the pipe cause any damage to the wire? Should I be concerned about this? Thanks.

Hello, I am trying to wiring a ceiling fan and I am having a few problems. 1. I ran the wiring from the fan to a light switch which controls an outlet. There is one cable going from the light switch to the outlet. 2. The outlet is wired with the black from the light switch connected to the outlet, while the white from the switch is connected to two other black wires, that I assume is going to another oulet. 3. The outlet basically has two black wires connected on one side of the outlet, and one white wire connected on the other side. With two black wires and one white connected together with a plastic wire cap. 4. So, when I try to connect the ceiling fan wires to the light switch, white to white, and black to black, it does not work. 5. I would like to use the light switch to control the fans power, so it can be turned on and off from the switch. I am not very good at house wiring, and any help in walking me through this would be greatly appreciated.