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I bought a new fridge. Since the power cord of the new fridge is at the bottom and short, it did not reach the original receptacle high on the wall. I had to put a new receptacle lower on the wall. enter image description here enter image description here I drew the wiring diagram for the original receptacles, based on what was there (Figure 1). The old fridge was connected to receptacle-1, and we used the receptacle-2 to connect toaster, etc. in the kitchen. Then, I put a 20 Amp receptacle (receptacle-3 in the figure-2). A day after the installation, I have realized that my wiring is different than original wiring. Since the re-wiring I have not used the receptacle 2 yet. I have the following questions:

  1. Was the original wiring in Figure-1 correct and safe?
  2. Is the new wiring done by me in Figure-2 correct and safe? Now, I think not.
  3. Is the wiring in Figure-1 a parallel receptacle wiring? Is the wiring in Figure-2 a serial receptacle wiring?
  4. Is there any other questions I should be asking? Or call an electrician?

Thank you!

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  • the 20 A receptacle may be an issue if the wiring cannot support it – jsotola Dec 9 '19 at 6:16
  • My breaker says 20 Amp on it. Refrigerator manual says that it should be plugged into a 15A or 20A outlet. Is this still a concern? – Supertech Dec 9 '19 at 23:43
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  1. Looks fine, provided it doesn't reflect the physical route of the wires.
  2. Looks fine.
  3. Those words aren't the right words, but you have the gist. I would say "branched" and "daisy chained".
  4. The toaster receptacle needs GFCI protection. The fridge should avoid GFCI.

The electrical code doesn't care about whether your fridge is on GFCI, but it ought to, because food poisoning is just as deadly as electric shocks. Fridges do not benefit from GFCI protection if they're grounded.

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  • Thanks for the comments. If I have both the fridge and toaster are running at the same time, would not each device get less than 120 Volts (I am in USA) in the diagram 2? If this is the case, would not it hurt my electrical devices such as compressor of the fridge, etc. – Supertech Dec 9 '19 at 23:42
  • @Supertech no. Perhaps you are confused by the terminals on the side of the receptacle. They are usually used as splice blocks. That is, the screws on a side connect to the receptacles and also to each other. Using them as splice blocks does not put the appliances in series with each other. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Dec 10 '19 at 0:44

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