Home Improvement Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for contractors and serious DIYers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm new to "DIY home-electricity improvment", so I appreciate every detail that you provide.
I have a 70 amp circuit breaker that I want to use. How can I get three (15 amp outlets) from this breaker? For example, if I connect 6guage wire to this breaker, how can I connect that wire to three 15amp outlets? Looking at a picture of "6 gauge" wire, I see that it has multiple wires inside of it, does that means that I can connect an outlet to every single one of them?
Short answer, because there are a ton of details.
A 70A breaker does not connect directly to 15A or 20A receptacles (the "standard outlets").
There are basically two possibilities:
A 70A breaker can be connected, with appropriate wire, to a subpanel. A subpanel typically has a bunch of breakers, which can include 15A or 20A breakers that can be connected to 15A receptacles. This is commonly done either to serve a second building (garage, workshop, shed, barn, office) or to serve the main building if the main panel runs out of spaces for more breakers.
Beyond that, there are many details, depending on the specifics (type of panel, wiring method, power requirements, etc.)
Sometimes you have an existing large breaker that is no longer in use but want to add a circuit for 15A or 20A receptacles. That is most common with, for example, an electric hot water heater that has been replaced with gas. But it can happen with other things as well. If that is how you ended up with a 70A breaker, you will need to replace it with a 15A or 20A breaker. The specifics will depend on the size of the wire and possibly some other factors. In addition, a 70A breaker would normally be 240V = 2 hots, so you would actually replace this with either a double 15A or 20A breaker or two separate breakers, again depending on a number of factors.
A proper 15A breaker for most panels is 5 bucks.
The whole point of breakers is protecting wires and equipment. A 70A breaker is simply too big to provide any protection to 15A and 20A circuits.
Stranded wire is NOT for splitting off. It's for flexibility (solid #6 would simply be too stiff). You can't modify equipment or wire like that. It would be impossible to even gauge which size you really have, and that's a requirement or else it's uninspectable.
If you wanted to run #6 to a 15A recep, you would have to pigtail down to #12 or some size the receptacle is rated to take. However, then, the breaker would have to be downsized to protect the #12. A stepdown like that only makes sense when running very long feeder where voltage drop is an issue.
The right stuff is cheap. Go buy it, or go to Habitat for Humanity and ask them to give it to you for charitable reasons. Helping indigent homeowners avoid doing substandard work pretty much their mission. Nobody should die in a house fire.
And cutting corners in electrical is a stupid plan. Pay now or pay later - the later will be when you sell your house and find all the offers are $15,000 lowball of where they should be, because their home inspector found all the shoddy work and they presume the house will need a complete rewire. Now you don't have the money for the down payment on the next house. Welcome to renting.
