I'm trying to wire an outlet under my kitchen sink. The wire coming up from the floor/sink cabinet has a white, black, bare, AND red wire. There is no switch for this line.

I want a standard, always hot, non-switched outlet, but I just don't know what to do with the red wire.

I assume there's an easy fix for something like this???

 

This may actually be two circuits in the cable, one on the black, the other on the red. Does a single or double pole breaker feed this?

 

I just checked and it's a single pole breaker.

 

Should I try hooking up an outlet with the black, white, and bare wires and then try hooking it up with the red, white, and bare wires to see if there are two circuits?

 

If you can see if one conductor is unused in the panel, just use the other one. I thought this might have been done for a dishwasher and a disposal with two circuits.

 

WAIT! I wired the outlet with just the black, white, and bare and the outlet worked. It then shut off when I switched off the breaker labeled "kitchen island receptical".

I then rewired the outlet using just the red, white, and bare and the outlet worked this way as well. Nothing happened when I switched off the "kitchen island" breaker, however when I switched off the breaker labeled "dishwasher" the outlet shut off.

I take this to mean that you were right and it is actually two separate circuits.

Is there a way that I can wire the outlet and have the top and bottom inputs being their own designated circuit?

 

You mean you want one side of the receptacle on the black wire circuit and the other half on the red wire one?

 

Yes. It's for a disposal and dishwasher, both of which will be plugged in rather than direct wired.

 

Do you have 240v between the black and red?

 

I'm not sure. All I know is that when I hook up an outlet to either circuit, whatever is plugged in works. Each circuit breaker is marked 20 (amps, I assume).

I'm pretty naive with this stuff, which is also why I turn the power for the entire house off whenever I attempt electrical work

 

If the red and blacks are not on opposite legs of the 240v you could overload the neutral. By current code it should be on a single 240v, 2-pole breaker to prevent that possibility. Using two 120v breakers may have been code compliant when they were installed but as stated they must be on opposite legs of the 240 volt supply to your house.

 

Thanks, Ray. Is that an easy fix? Can I simply go buy a double-pole 240 breaker and pop it in? If so, what would the final outlet wiring look like?

 

The receptacle wiring would have the red on one brass screw with the black on the other brass screw. The tab between the brass screws needs to be broken off. White to silver, bare to green.

If the breakers are one on top the other this will be an easy change to install the two pole breaker.

 

Awesome! Thanks, everyone! I'll try to pay it forward on one of the other forum topics.

 

Thanks, this set my mood for the whole day.