On Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:42:27 -0800, David Nebenzahl
wrote:

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.


Not to mention we'd have to use lead-free solder today if we were
soldering joints - and that is a REAL PITA.