Junction Box
An enclosed box where wires are spliced together. Every splice in a home must live inside an accessible, covered box: hidden splices are a serious fire hazard and a code violation.
The rule is absolute and exists because splices fail: a connection that loosens over time arcs, heats and can ignite. Inside a covered metal or plastic box, that failure is contained and findable. Buried in a wall or ceiling under drywall, it is neither. "Accessible" means you can reach the cover without demolition: attics and basements count, behind the new kitchen tile does not.
Junction boxes are a staple of inspection reports on older homes: open splices in attics, taped bundles in crawl spaces, boxes with missing covers. Each one is a quick fix individually, and collectively they map how much amateur work the house has absorbed.
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- Wire Gauge (AWG) : The thickness of a wire, measured in American Wire Gauge.
- Conduit : Protective tubing (metal or PVC) that individual wires are pulled through, used where cable would be exposed to damage, weather or burial: garages, outdoors, underground runs.
- Knob and Tube Wiring : The original residential wiring method (roughly 1880 – 1940s): individual conductors on ceramic knobs and tubes, with no ground wire and air-cooled design that modern insulation defeats.
- Aluminum Branch Wiring : Branch-circuit wiring installed in millions of homes from about 1965 – 1973 that develops loose, overheating connections at outlets and switches.