Electrical hookups

I have black, white, and ground wires coming from the electric panel. I have black, white, red, and ground wires coming from the garage. How do I connect the wires from the electric panel to those from the garage?

 

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I assume the wires from the panel are supplying power. What size are and type they? What size breaker are is the black wire on?

What size and type are the wires coming from the garage? What is their function? Are they connected to lights and receptacles, or to something else?

 

And where are all these wires your trying to connect?
Sounds like you have wires coming from two different directions and your working on a junction someplace.

 

Are you trying to connect wiring for 3-way switches?

 

The question is too vague to give a correct answer without knowing what you are trying to do.

 

I have lights and outlets in the garage. The black, white, and red, and ground wires are small copper wires coming from the garage and have a jacket around them and are routed underground. I want to connect the black, white, and ground wire, which also have a jacket around them, coming from the panel to the ones coming from the garage to supply power to the garage. They were hooked up at one time in a junction box before I bought the house.

 

The wiring a the garage sounds like a multiwire circuit but a 2-conductor cable (black and white) can't be used to supply a multiwire circuit (3-conductor cable, black, red, white). Are you sure that 2-conductor cable is the correct cable? Is this an attached or detached garage? Do you have either and unused 2-pole breaker or two handle tied single pole breakers in your panel? There is a way to jerry-rig it within code but better to connect it correctly.

 

You need to figure out whether the red wire is supposed to carry current for general use versus be connected to a light switch.

Ultimately you want to find out how the garage is wired. For starters follow the steps below:

Temporarily (no junction box needed), connect the bare (ground) wire from the panel to the bare wire going to the garage. Connect the white wire from the panel to the white wire going out to the garage.

Now connect the other wire from the panel to the black wire going out to the garage. Go out to the garage and see what works and what does not.

Next, return to the work site and disconnect the black wire going to the garage and connect the red wire in its place. See what works in the garage and what does not.

Do not connect both the red and black wires going out to the garage to power simultaneously until you are sure they are intended to be parts of different subcircuits (of a red/white/black combination typically called a multiwire branch circuit)./