2 questions - vanity light and romex with no power

Looking thru what appears to be a great site. Working on remodeling bath.

I am adding an exhaust fan and 2 vanity light bars to the existing 3 light circuit. The existing circuit has bath light, light in adjoning laundry room, and the outside patio light. BEst I can tell that's all that's on it. I put in a junction box last night to keep from adding two more 12-2s to the exisiting ceiling box. the junction box is full now, too, so I thought I'd drop the 12-2 for 2 vanity light bars (4 bulbs each). To that I will switch them between themselves lower on the wall. One switch for both lights. I also figured that the exhaust fan could come from the vanity light junction. More or less putting vanity lights in the middle of a circuit run, right? How do the two lights and switch wire up? I think I can add the exh fan wire to that connection.

Second question: bath had a little thermostat knob controll by bathroom wall. WE also found some romex taped out behind the paneling (!). No power to either apparently. So when I was in attic, I found these wires and looked for their runs. Seems like one run goes toward the panel, but can't see for sure. At anyrate, I can't find any power to it, from any of the breakers. I flipped the off ones on and tried everything I could to energize them, to no avail. I cut the romex in the attic, stapled it to a rafter and wire nutted the ends of the wires apart about 6 -8" from the wood and spread the ends apart.. It's haning in space up there, but away from everything and itself. Will that be okay?

Thanks
Randy

rando said:

I cut the romex in the attic, stapled it to a rafter and wire nutted the ends of the wires apart about 6 -8" from the wood and spread the ends apart.. It's haning in space up there, but away from everything and itself. Will that be okay?

Click to expand...

Hi Randy. I had the same sitch here. My slab leak reroute plumber (also a lic. general) found several rogue NM cables in a soffit and wall. We couldn't find power to them but whoever left them left stripped bare ends (!!!). The contractor wire nutted them off in a similar manner to your post. Therefore, I believe you're ok with the fix you posted.

Interesting to know I'm not the only one with weird stuff like that. We were incredulous at some of the stuff that was done behind the paneling.

I did get the other wiring done last night and everything seems to be working correctly from a current standpoint. Not going to install the light bars til after sheetrock, but there is current there when I flip the switch, so hopefully all will be good.

Thanks
Randy

Some things to consider:
- will the circuit be drawing too much amperage?
- is this really a 20amp circuit or did someone splice some 12-2 onto 14-2?
- you might want the light & fan on separate switches (more or less, split the hot before the light switch and pigtail those splits to the switches. Come out of the switches one to the light and one to the fan. Split the ground and neutral also, and send those along with the hot to each fixture).

For the stray circuit in the attic, terminate them inside a J-box w/wirenuts on the ends. Mount the J-box out of the way. If your still curious about these circuits, you could open the breaker panel and see what guage wire is on what amp breakers and see if there are any terminated circuits inside the panel. Got any breakers that don't turn anything off?

I think those wires were for old baseboard heaters. You probably have forced air now? Maybe, just a thought. Sounds like you got everything else figured out? Good luck......

I do believe there is a circuit for old base board heaters. And that is probably what the dead wires are. I have one circuit that disappears into the wall and affects nothing in the house, whether it is on or off.

As for amperage on that circuit, I did calculate out what each item draws and was okay with the way I described above.

I thought that with the light fan on same switch, we would at least make sure to use the fan when we use the shower, since the light is over by the shower and commode. the instructions for the fan/light had the option for one switch or two called out.

All the wiriing seems to be working at this point.

Thanks for the assistance guys.
randy