1920's wiring....
On 10/26/2009 12:47 PM Existential Angst spake thus:
I once expressed the opinion that some significant percentage of
electrical fires *must* be due to wire nuts, because cross-sectional
area of electron flow is greatly reduced, even on a properly
twisted/nutted joint, while solder virtually completely eleminates
this conductive bottleneck.
I don't think this is true if a proper wire-nutted connection is made:
the threads of the nut should bite into the wires, and with enough of a
twist inside the nut, there's a plenty large enough contact area.
Soldered connections are, of course, better (assuming they're properly
made), but this isn't something I envision us going back to. (Although
who know, after the Apocalypse and a return to primitivism ...)
Ditto the spring-type clips on the backs of some outlets (which spell
disaster, imo, having seen a number of these melt out). Wire nuts
present the same problem, just not as egregious as these
spring-contact outlets.
Well, while I don't necessarily want to fan the embers of the
back-stabbing argument, I think the consensus of opinion is that wire
nut connections are far superior to backstabbed ones.
--
Found--the gene that causes belief in genetic determinism
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