I opened an electrical box today to a bit of a surprise - a little bit of exposed conductor on one of the wires! As far as I can tell, there is no damage to the conductor (12 gauge). Note that this is for a 240 volt line voltage thermostat.
Is it acceptable to wrap this wire with electrical tape and call it good? A few notes to help complicate this:
- This is 12 gauge wire and quite stiff, it looks like it has been twisted and untwisted several times already
- This is inside a gang box so I don't see any easy way to "add a junction box" which seems to be the normal answer - and I wouldn't want to add a blank cover junction box right below this, it would look awful
- I'm pretty certain that I wouldn't have enough wire to work with if I trimmed it right behind the knick - this wire connects to a wire nut with 3 total wires when complete
- I can't easily remove this cable and fish a new one as it is a long run of wire and is stapled behind the dry wall (this is on the cable from the breaker)
- This is a full junction box already, so I don't really have room to be adding some fancy (read: big) specialty splice piece
All kinds of fun. Seems to me like the only "easy" way to fix it would be with electrical tape. However, having it totally safe and up to code/regulations is most important to me, so if electrical tape won't cut it then I'll probably have to get an electrical to do something (not sure what). If it matters, I'm in WA, USA. Thanks for the help!