With electrical work, if you're not paranoid, you're not being realistic.
An obvious hazard to having outlets and lights on the same circuit is that if you are using an outlet in the garage on a dark night and you trip the breaker, you will be in the dark.
A 14 gauge feed line would indicate its a lighting circuit and may only be a 10 amp breaker. It won't take much to trip that breaker with an outlet.
I understand the frustration of such a limiting circumstance but for safety and for convenience you should consider if its possible to add some 12 gauge wires to that feed to the garage and add a couple of breakers so you have a safer area. Its a good idea to keep lighting and outlets separate so you don't find yourself in a hazardous situation.
I did that in my garage, it wasn't easy as the garage is detached. I only had the 1 hot and one neutral to begin with. I added one more neutral and 2 hots. It involved a lot of going under the house and opening walls to the sub panel. I had to add new conduit and snake 3 new wires through an existing conduit under a concrete slab that was about a 30 foot run. It was hard but the payoff was huge. My garage is a lot safer now but it wasn't easy.
Every house is different, sometimes its possible, sometimes impractical.
Steve
On 1/21/2012 8:20 PM, jmr1290 wrote:
Thanks, that worked. That was one of those times I was just being *too* paranoidly careful. :-)
--- In DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com, "Bill Chmelik" <Chmelik@...> wrote:
>
> If it was me, I would just spread the wires so that they do not touch, get a
> voltmeter, turn on the power and figure it out...
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com [mailto:DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com]
> On Behalf Of jmr1290
> Sent: Saturday, January 21, 2012 9:15 PM
> To: DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [DIY] Re: electrical question - two switches and outgoing power
>
> Also, the two cables originally coming into the top of the box -- how do I
> tell which one is line and which load? From up in the attic, I know one of
> them comes from the breaker box, and the other goes to the original fixture,
> but I can't see through the wall ya know. I already removed the switch that
> was in there, so can't turn the breaker back on (I guess I could've used the
> multimeter and figured it out before I took the switch out?)
>
> I know just enough about wiring to be dangerous.
>
> --- In DoIt_Yourself@yahoogroups.com, Joy Rex <jomarex@> wrote:
> >
> > The two books I'm looking at don't seem to cover this exact situation.
> >
> > I have a switch going to the garage door opener, and then the power
> > continues on to some always-hot outlets in other rooms. Is there any
> > reason I couldn't add another switch just for lights in the garage?
> > Just add another set of black pigtails for the other switch and add
> > the white wire to the rest of them? That's a lot of wires, but I got
> > a big double box.
> >
> > I hope that makes sense...
> >
> > thanks
> > Joy
> >
>
>
>
>
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