Residential outlet question

[fcarruth]

First off, great and informative site. I have been here a few times for info but just now registered.

Anyway, we are finishing an addition and are almost ready for the electrician to come back. He is out due to illness for a few more weeks but told me I could wire the outlets and ceiling fans to save a few bucks. I have a general knowledge (or thought I did) but ran into something that I have not seen before. I have 2 outlets with 3 sets of wires coming into the box. I can only verify continuity on 1 set of the 3 wires in one box. On one, it goes across the room and I was wondering how I wired it to the outlet and on the other one, I checked for continuity and it does not reference to any wire anywhere in the addition that I can find.

Hope this is clear enough for an answer but if not, I can try to explain in more detail if needed.

Thanks again for any help that you can help me with on this.

Frank

[giddonah]

It sounds to me like you've got one for power coming into the box and two feeding for power going out. If this is the case, then you wirenut all the neutrals together with a pigtail for the outlet and all then do the same for all the hots.

If you have continuity on one, then that tells me that's the power coming in. And by continuity, you mean neutral/ground? You can verify the other wires by shorting the neutral/ground at some other box and see if that gives you continuity in the box you're investigating (only one short at a time, or you won't know which is which). And obviously, you do this with no power on.