Electricians..... why do they do this?

ManglerYJ

ManglerYJ

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 20, 2005
Location
Lexington, NC
So I'm adding a circuit into my living room that simply entails running a new line to the box, cutting holes for 4 remodel boxes and running wire between the boxes. Since this circuit is for my home automation stack (firewall PC, cable modem, router, Ethernet switch, house phone, Roku box and cable box for tv on that wall), I can run them in one stack in one wall cavity. Simple enough. All of the electrical outlets will be daisy chained from one to the next. So why is it that the hot and white lugs on the electrical outlets have an "incoming" and an "outgoing", but the ground lug only has one lug, forcing you to create a pigtail for each outlet? Seems like a lot of unnecessary work and a waste of wire and wire nuts, where adding one more ground lug to the outlet would do the same....

Anyway, venting done..... I have the extra romex, just forgot to get wirenuts for the pigtails, so off to Lowes I go for 3 stupid 29¢ wire nuts.
 
So you have 3 grounds you have to tie together to be able to ground to a single lug on the box? That's normal. I mean, I think it's faster to tie them together than to screw each ground to its individual lug in a residential box.

Costs for materials and manufacturing are likely why you don't see more lugs inside residential boxes. You can certainly add a ground bar if that's what you want
 
rockcity said:
So you have 3 grounds you have to tie together to be able to ground to a single lug on the box? That's normal. I mean, I think it's faster to tie them together than to screw each ground to its individual lug in a residential box.

Costs for materials and manufacturing are likely why you don't see more lugs inside residential boxes. You can certainly add a ground bar if that's what you want
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Yep, and I have to do that 3 times... will take less time to do it than I have already spent complaining about it, but complaining is something I'm good at. Just seems that with all the advancements in outlets over the years, making the ground a "push in" and have an inbound and an outbound would be one to speed things up. The other two wires can have push-ins - why not the ground?
 
Because push ins are fucking horrible, that's why.

There's somebody.... Cooper, maybe?? That has a push-in terminal on the back that is connected to the screw terminal, so you have to tighten the screw to get the wire to hold. Those are decent. But the spring-loaded ones fucking suck.
 
If you are using the push ins on the back just stop now.

There are about 10 reasons why they suck.

Regarding the ground it is technically because you want 1 and only 1 point of ground at any given point. If you depended on a bridge on the device to carry the ground path a failure at 1 recep could cause an electrocution at another.
 
shawn said:
Because push ins are fucking horrible, that's why.

There's somebody.... Cooper, maybe?? That has a push-in terminal on the back that is connected to the screw terminal, so you have to tighten the screw to get the wire to hold. Those are decent. But the spring-loaded ones fucking suck.
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ha! great minds think alike I suppose.
And while yes I'd prefer the mechanically held internal plate to the spring loaded garbage, those are still an inferior design to a 180+ degree loop wrapped CLOCKWISE around a screw terminal.

Even the screw tighten ones have the negative of reduced pressure/contact points. Add to that the fact that only folks who dont do electrical work daily use them, and those same users are 1 bagillion times more lightly to score the copper while stripping the insulation and you have an inherent pre-destined failure point.

Then we start discussing over stripping and exposed copper or under stripping and imperfect contact patches.
 
Ron said:
If you are using the push ins on the back just stop now.

There are about 10 reasons why they suck.

Regarding the ground it is technically because you want 1 and only 1 point of ground at any given point. If you depended on a bridge on the device to carry the ground path a failure at 1 recep could cause an electrocution at another.
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Now that actually makes sense... as far as the push-in thing - I agree they suck. The ones I bought (Hubbell Commercial from Lowes) apparently are like @shawn suggested - a screw down type that doesn't require you to horseshoe the wires and wrap around the lugs. That's the part that I always hated about finish wiring. Especially if the wire is about 1/2" too short because you had to cut it out of the push-in someone else used (see what I did there?)
 
A connection problem with Daisy chained power is an inconvenience, but a connection problem with a daisy chained ground is a serious safety issue. That's why no ground daisy chained.
 
Ron said:
those are still an inferior design to a 180+ degree loop wrapped CLOCKWISE around a screw terminal.
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True, but I'll use the compression terminals on a GFCI in a metal box any day. Better to have a marginally-worse connection at the hot leg than have the receptacle shift and short against the box. There just isn't enough clearance otherwise.
 
ManglerYJ said:
Now that actually makes sense... as far as the push-in thing - I agree they suck. The ones I bought (Hubbell Commercial from Lowes) apparently are like @shawn suggested - a screw down type that doesn't require you to horseshoe the wires and wrap around the lugs. That's the part that I always hated about finish wiring. Especially if the wire is about 1/2" too short because you had to cut it out of the push-in someone else used (see what I did there?)
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I was just talking w/ an electrician buddy about this last night. He said never ever ever use the backstabs, he had seen more outlets than he could count that were melted on the backside from the shitty stab connection just not being enough. I agree that the bending into a U to hook around the screw is a pain but personally it's all I will do now in my own house, after taking some close looks at the internals of different types of connections. If you Google it you'll find lots of cutaway pics.
 
shawn said:
True, but I'll use the compression terminals on a GFCI in a metal box any day. Better to have a marginally-worse connection at the hot leg than have the receptacle shift and short against the box. There just isn't enough clearance otherwise.
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With the push ins the screws are hot anyway, so not like you are any safer with either, since the wire will be inboard of the screws when wound.
 
Blaze said:
With the push ins the screws are hot anyway, so not like you are any safer with either, since the wire will be inboard of the screws when wound.
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sure but...with the wire under the screw the screw isnt tightened down as far.
On older receps it isnt an issue.

In the constant drive to cheapen costs, and thereby reduce material utilization, a new GFCI if the wires are under the screws the screw will sit about 1/8" proud of the rest of the body.
 
Blaze said:
With the push ins the screws are hot anyway, so not like you are any safer with either, since the wire will be inboard of the screws when wound.
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The screw is proud of the case of the GFCI body with a wire under it. If you use the terminals on the back, the screw is recessed.
 
Fuck stab-ins...clamp style works decent.

I ALWAYS pigtail my hot & neutral, better circuit, minimize damage during device failure....

But I also use nothing smaller than #12 & 20-amp devices. There is a reason I do not wire new homes by the square foot anymore.

Stabs have made me a lot of money in brand new homes.. .replacing outlets & switches.
 
doc said:
Fuck stab-ins...clamp style works decent.

I ALWAYS pigtail my hot & neutral, better circuit, minimize damage during device failure....

But I also use nothing smaller than #12 & 20-amp devices. There is a reason I do not wire new homes by the square foot anymore.

Stabs have made me a lot of money in brand new homes.. .replacing outlets & switches.
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and all this time I assumed you were medical....learned something. Beside the general agreed with standard of hating cheep shit..
 
Why are the screws that hold the wires and fasten the devices to a box Philips head but I have to find a flat blade screwdriver to install the cover plates?
 
moldman05 said:
Why are the screws that hold the wires and fasten the devices to a box Philips head but I have to find a flat blade screwdriver to install the cover plates?
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Because Klein 14 in 1

Honestly it's aesthetics on the cover plate and torque on connectors.

BTW I don't care if all your plate screws are perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal but they damn sure better all match.
 
I started doing industrial electrical contracting w/ some PLC based programming, then started doing residential on the side, then commercial w/ management. I still have my license, but now have a management job w/ the state...do some side work occasionally.
 
Ron said:
Because Klein 14 in 1

Honestly it's aesthetics on the cover plate and torque on connectors.

BTW I don't care if all your plate screws are perfectly vertical or perfectly horizontal but they damn sure better all match.
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Fuck that noise, I only use cover plates with hidden screws. Looks much cleaner and modern.

But seriously, I would start to legitimately worry about you if you're actually concerned about the direction of the slots in a flatheat screw.
 
shawn said:
True, but I'll use the compression terminals on a GFCI in a metal box any day. Better to have a marginally-worse connection at the hot leg than have the receptacle shift and short against the box. There just isn't enough clearance otherwise.
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Wrap electrical tape around the receptical after you make the terminations on the screw down lugs. Early in my career I worked under a licensed electrician that required this on all switches and recepticals on residential and commercial jobs.
 
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