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USA Poster. I'm by no means a professional but have done some amount of electrical work. I discovered a 10/2 splice inside a wall. No box, just spliced with some nuts and taped.

I need to put it into a box, so I was going to undo the mess, add a box, "re-nut" correctly and then wanted to add a line of 12/2 for some outlets on that new wall. Can I just pigtail off the 10/2 junction and wire into a new line at 12/2?

I was going to start the 12/2 from the pigtail and into a 20A GFCI and then run 2 outlets along the wall from that. Better way of doing it?

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    Find the breaker that the 10/2 is on. If done right before it should be a 30 amp double breaker with the white wire changed to a second hot and not neutral. Having a splice inside a wall makes it being done right quite iffy/suspect. Depending on what you find, replacing with a single 20 amp breaker and moving the white wire to the neutral bus should be enough, plus the new box.
    – crip659
    Commented Mar 30 at 23:35
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    @crip659 shouldn't it be marked in some fashion too? What if the OP adds his 12/2 and someone in the future comes by and says, "oh, this wire is 10 ga, I can swap the 20A breaked for a 30A!"
    – Huesmann
    Commented Mar 31 at 11:41
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    @Huesmann It should be marked that 12/2 is on that circuit.
    – crip659
    Commented Mar 31 at 11:52

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This depends on the circuit breaker ampacity. Anything over 20 A is not allowed to use 12 ga circuit conductors nor 20 A receptacles.

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