I want to add an outlet in my garage. I thought I could power it from the switch that controls the garage door opener. After setting the outlet and laying the wire I opened the switch to find 4leads/wires all from one cable/wire bundle. 1 white, 1 black, 1 red and 1 copper(ground). There were no other wires or pigtails in there. The white, black and copper wires were connected to the switch. I hooked up my new wire to the white and black leads but no power to the outlet when turned on. It powers up when the switch was turned off. when I used a receptacle tester, I think it showed hot/ground reverse. When I flipped the white and black wires it did the same. So I connected the white of the outlet to the red wire and got hot/neutral reverse.

Wondering what the correct way to connect the wires is?

In all of the scenarios there is no power to the outlets when switch is on. It only gets power when the switch is off.

I am also surprised that all the leads to the switch are coming from one wire/cable. I thought switch stays in between to interrupt and provide continuity to the fixture.

Will post some pics a little later.

 

Did you make a misstatement there. Garage door switches are low voltage. Is that in fact a switch that controls a receptacle that powers the garage door? If so what is the wiring at the receptacle that that switch controls? My best guess from the picture is that is a switch loop wired by someone lacking in knowledge. If the wiring on the other end is a receptacle it can probably be wired to work for you.

If that cable indeed connects to the GDO then it isn't 120 volts.

 

ray2047,
Thanks for the reply.
You are correct. I probably did not make that clear. The switch controls power to the overhead garage door unit along with a light bulb that is there. the other end is a light bulb with an outlet on its base. The garage door unit is plugged into the outlet.

Since I currently have this wired so the new wires is routed to the switch, I wanted to get an opinion if this can be wired from the switch. If not I'll have to reroute the wire to the light bulb and connect it to the wiring there.

 

You've only show half the circuit so I can only guess at the other side of the circuit. For purposes of guessing you have a 3-conductor cable at the light and a 2-conductor cable that reads ~120 volts measured black to white.

At the switch box:

• Strip back the sheath and add 5" to the red wire.
• Connect the red to one side of the switch.
• Connect the black of the existing 3-conductor cable and black of the new cable to a pigtail.
• Connect the pigtail to the other screw of the switch.
• Grounds pigtailed to the switch.

At the combo keyless fixture/receptacle:

• Disconnect all wires except ground.
• Connect White to white to pigtail.
• White pigtail to silver screw of keyless fixture.
  
  
• Connect black to black (and nothing else).
• Connect red to brass screw of keyless fixture.

If the combo fixture does not have a grounded receptacle it should be replaced.

 

It sounds like!e you are trying to get power from a 3 way switch. Is there another switch for that light?

 

No three way switch. It's a single pole switch leg and the red wire was cut off at the jacket because it wasn't needed when it was installed.

You could take power from that switch location if you could get enough red wire to work with.

 

Ray2047,
I opned the base of the light fixture and there are two wire/cable sets. Both with a single white, single black and ground. A white from one cable/wire and ae black from another wire/cable are connected to the light fixture and the remaining black and white were pigtailed together. See pic attached.

Should I still try and do as you suggested? There is no red.

PJMax,

I am not sure if there is another 3 way switch. I recently bought this home.
Also I tried connecting to the red wire. But as indicated in the original post, it did not work.

 

No. You need to find out why there is a 3-conductor cable at the switch but a 2-conductor cable at the light. There may be a third junction box involved.

 

Needless to say, mission aborted.
I am going to wire it from the end point.

Appreciate the responses.