Greetings all, first post here. I'm adding an outlet in a bedroom, and the existing wiring (done by the builder in 1993) surprised me. Power is fed to the switch box in this bedroom by 14/3. The black wire appears to connect to one of my 15A breakers labeled "receptacles" and powers the outlets in the bedroom. The red wire comes from a different 15A breaker, and inside the box it connects to the black of a 14/2 which powers the outlets in the family room and part of the kitchen. White is the shared neutral. Questions: 1. Is it "code" or even "smart" to have power from multiple breakers in a box? I thought I'd turned off all the power in the box at a single breaker, only to find live wires. 2. Ditto on the code-ness and smart-ness of having two breakers connected to a single wire. This box is only perhaps 25 feet from the panel, why didn't they run two 14/2's instead of one 14/3? 3. The shared white wire bothers me. It's the neutral for a significant part of my house. (But there are perhaps 50 houses like mine in the subdivision, and none have burst into flame yet.) Now, about my project. The room has one switched outlet, and I want to add another. Haven't decided whether to parallel the two outlets (run them off the existing switch) or to put in another switch. I don't know if I can fish in a new wire without removing the box, so that will influence my decision. Anyway, there are 6 black wires in the box, in a single wire nut - power, an unswitched outlet, two for the existing switched outlet and two for the ceiling fan. I'd need to add two more but it looks like the wire nut (it's red - are they color-coded?) will NOT hold any more, and Home Depot didn't have any bigger nuts. I think I have several options, including attaching some black wires to unused screw terminals on the switches or daisy-chaining two wire nuts together if that's legal. Not as neat as a single wire nut but will probably do the job. Thoughts here would be appreciated. Thanks.

Hello! I've replaced a 2 prong outlet with a 3 prong GFI outlet. I went ahead and placed the "No Equipment Ground" sticker on the outlet as I'm supposed to. But what does the term "no equipment ground" really mean? Does it mean that I shouldn't use certain power tool equipment with it? Does it mean that I shouldn't use items which draw too much power? Does it mean I shouldn't plug my TV or other electronics into it? Thanks for your help! -Ben