How To Make An Electrical Pigtail

First, fully disconnect the power to the outlet or the switch you are working on at the breaker panel. Once you’ve flipped the breaker, return to the outlet or switch and use an electrical tester to make sure all of the wires are dead. If there’s still power to that wiring, your tester should light up or make a noise. Start this process over until your tester no longer lights up indicating there is still power.

The next thing to do is separate your wires by color. Get all the black wires together, all the white wires together, and all of the copper ground wires together.

Depending on your situation, the wires might be different lengths. So, you can strip each one to have the same amount of exposed copper and then clip them to be the same length as well. That way, when the wires are twisted together, they will be the same length.

Twist the black wires with the new piece of wire, clockwise, with your pliers. The reason you go clockwise is that the wire nut will also screw on clockwise and you want the wires to tighten in on each other.

Once you have that done, trim the copper if they aren’t all the same length anymore. Make sure everything is straight and that the wire nut will cover the exposed copper. Then take the wire nut and screw it on. Repeat this for the white wires and copper wires. Now that you have each group wire nutted together, you should have one wire that’s much longer than the others.

Now you're ready to install a new outlet or switch. Push the grouped wires back into the electrical box and keep the new long wire out to work with. Strip back the ends and make fresh connections for your new outlet or switch.

Now you're ready to install a new outlet or switch. Push the grouped wires back into the electrical box and keep the new long wire out to work with. Strip back the ends and make fresh connections for your new outlet or switch.