this is my first post here. Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
I recently bought a new home and basically I need to move an electrical outlet 3 feet to the left so that it is hidden by my entertainment center. Before explaining in depth, I'll mention that I am by no means an electrician, but I feel like I'm capable of following directions (and being careful). I just need to make sure I'm doing everything correctly.
I plan on drilling a hole through two studs that are in between my originating location and desired location, fishing a romex 12-2 cable through to the desired location, hooking the receptacle up to the fished-in wire in a new junction box, and of course adding a new junction box where the original outlet used to be and connecting the wires together via wire nuts. Does that all sound legal/legit/up-to-code so far? Am I correct in using 12-2 romex for an interior outlet?
The problem I'm running into is that the receptacle currently has 3 different romex cables hooked up to it. I haven't gone as far as turning off my breaker yet so I haven't removed the receptacle from the box, but from peeking in with my flashlight it looks like the receptacle has 1 ground connected, 3 neutral and 3 hot wires connected (using both the screw on the side and the push-in holes). Like I said before I don't know much about electricity but I'm guessing those other two romex cables have to do with the fireplace and the fireplace's on/off switch slightly above the receptacle. Maybe one romex controls the switch, and the other romex is providing power to the gas fireplace electrical portion of the system? (the gas to the fireplace is currently shut off, if that matters at all)
Question 1: I realize that a junction box can only have so many connections inside - would I be able to pull this off by buying a larger junction box, or is it even needed? If it is needed, do you have any recommendations?
Question 2: Would this even be do-able? I'm guessing I would end up having 4 neutral/white wires connected together in one wire nut, another 4 hot/black wires connected in one wire nut, and at least 2 ground wires connected in one wire nut (since the other 2 ground wires don't appear to be connected). I came up with 4 because the receptacle currently appears to have 3 neutrals and 3 hots connected with 1 ground, and adding my cable to extend the outlet would add the 4th cable to connect together.
Is 4 too many to connect? There is an outlet on the other side of the wall that just has 1 connection each to the receptacle so it would be a lot easier for a novice like myself, but of course that outlet is separated to my desired location by 4 studs that I would have to drill through without damaging anything else and then fish wire all the way through, and that doesn't seem like the best option to me if I can manage to wire the receptacle on the right correctly. I've added pictures below to help.
Thanks again for any advice and/or tips!
