New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed
outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his
own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some
of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension
cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it and was
connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord
was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This
year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4
screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the
jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it
is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the
LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

On 12/29/2011 8:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through?

Either is good. If using #12 solid wire I would use pigtails - much
easier to push the receptacle back into the box.

If an Edison circuit (2 different circuits and a neutral) goes through
the box the neutral can not be run through the receptacle.

I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air.

The rest of the metal in the receptacle also is a heat sink.

My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

The NEC has no problem with it. Incidentally, allowing backstabs is a UL
'problem'.

--
bud--

On Dec 29, 8:20*am, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. * During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. *I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed
outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his
own house. *Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. *The Christmas tree was on. *We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some
of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. *I disconnected the extension
cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it and was
connected to an upstream outlet. *The male plug *on the extension cord
was hot to the touch. *I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. *This
year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. *So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. *After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. *Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. *My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4
* screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? *I noticed that the
jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it
is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. *My vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. *Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. *I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. *But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. *I know this doubles up on the wattage of the
LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

I would vote for the wire-nut at the junction and a short wire to the
screw on the outlet, backstabbing is not too bad if the outlet is
decent quality so that it grabs the wire as it is supposed to do, but
quality is hard to find and no really good way to test for it.
Corrosion at the single point of contact can escalate giving the sort
of problem you noted. A wire under a srew head or mashed together
iwth other wires in a wire nut has protection against corrosion since
the copper is in direct contact over a large area with another copper
surface.

IMO, back-stab receptacles are a fire waiting to happen. I
can't believe they are even legal.

My personal choice is to buy high-quality back-wire
receptacles and use the receptacle as a daisy chain
junction.

Note: Quality back-wire receptacles allow you to put two
wires under one screw so that your downstream outlet current
isn't flowing through the jumper tab.

"Art Todesco" wrote in message
...
: New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed
the use of
: back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and
he (no
: surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the
back stabbed
: outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he
would do in his
: own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord
plugged into
: an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to
that extension
: cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look
C7 lamps, some
: of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected
the extension
: cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through
it and was
: connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the
extension cord
: was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5
amps. This
: year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed
and found out
: there were only 2 outlets before the one where the
Christmas tree was
: plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the
looped through
: Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets
on those 2
: outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually
connected.
: But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4
volts higher at
: the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2
outlets before the
: tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including
neutrals, 10
: back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4
volt drop on
: each.
:
: Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My
question is,
: which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet
or using all 4
: screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I
noticed that the
: jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would
guess that it
: is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open
air. My vote
: would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the
experts.
:
: BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the
back stabs to
: do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with
another wire
: to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works,
but is it to code?
:
: And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they
really are
: not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s
outside and they
: were considerably dimmer than their room-heater
equivalents and they do
: blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights,
I use a full
: wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the
wattage of the
: LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a
whole lot better.

"Art Todesco" wrote in message
...
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where the
Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured voltages.
After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of course, no
heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it, there were a
total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the Christmas tree,
so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to do
the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire to Tee
off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are not
quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do blink.
But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full wave
rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED and
probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

Inneresting Q.

Since you already did the measurements you did, why not perform the
experiment, comparing those tabs to wire-nutted pigtails, wrt voltage drop?
I've wondered about that myself.

I've had to sleuthe/replace backstabbled outlets, badly melted.... what a
pita, very scary, unbelievable that it's legal.

I have found #12 wire for runs, with #14 wire just for the pigtail to be
secure, easier to work with, esp. in tight spots.
My old house uses #14 wire throughout, but the splices are soldered AND wire
nutted!! The wiring (cloth) is still in very very good shape.

But, the circuit panel had a full twenty fuses/circuits, about half of them
edison, with almost ALL of thenm wired incorrectly -- two hots to the same
leg/phase!!! Appears to be the untouched original circuit layout, as well.
--
EA

Steve Barker wrote:
. . . . . This place was wired back when you could back stab 12ga.
ARRRRRHHHHHHGGGG!!!

I am with you and others in not liking or using back stab outlets, although
I do use and like back-wired outlets.

But, I am curious...., I think I do remember there being back stab outlets
for 12ga wire in the past. Is that something that is no longer available or
no longer allowed by the current codes? (Again, I don't like them and don't
want to use them, but I am just curious if they are no longer allowed by
code).

On 12/29/2011 6:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

knowing what you knew at the time and the fact that you even questioned
the electrician, i'm really perplexed as to why you allowed it? I never
would have. Who's paying who here? I have a real big problem with back
stabs and can't believe they still even make it a possibility. I tore
my hair out for three days looking for a problem in a commercial
application ONLY to find out it was a daisy chained backstabbed outlet
behind a desk (UNUSED mind you) that was the issue. This place was
wired back when you could back stab 12ga. ARRRRRHHHHHHGGGG!!!

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email

On Dec 29, 10:25*am, "Nymshifting Top-poster"
wrote:
IMO, back-stab receptacles are a fire waiting to happen. I
can't believe they are even legal.

My personal choice is to buy high-quality back-wire
receptacles and use the receptacle as a daisy chain
junction.

Note: Quality back-wire receptacles allow you to put two
wires under one screw so that your downstream outlet current
isn't flowing through the jumper tab.

"Art Todesco" wrote in message


That is what I did. I replace all the residential grade outlets in my
house with quality commercial grade outlets. The are still backstab,
at least sort of. The wire is straight and it slides in a slot under
the screw. Just stick the wire in and tighten down the screw.

Jimmie

On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:20:59 -0500, Art Todesco
wrote:

New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed
outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his
own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some
of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension
cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it and was
connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord
was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This
year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4
screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the
jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it
is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the
LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.


I agree that backstabbed connections are not the best, however the one
electrical issue we had in our house (10yo; this occurred about 2
years in) was related to a wire nut connection.

My wife went to turn on the TV, and as it came on the lights went out
in the room; all of the outlets were dead. Checked the circuit
breaker, and it hadn't tripped (and flipping it off/on didn't help).
Then I realized that one outlet in the hall was supposedly on the same
circuit, and it was working. Weird. So I started pulling plates on
all the outlets on the circuit, and lo and behold, the one behind the
TV (which was second in the chain) had a blackened section of wire
insulation and wire nut. Apparently the wire wasn't fully inserted,
and must have been arcing for a while before the load caused it to
disconnect for good.

Very scary to think that could have started a fire, and presumably
some of what the new Arc Fault breakers are intended to detect.

I redid that whole box's connections with pigtails and side-screw
connections, even though it wasn't the backstab at issue here.

Josh

Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back
stabbed outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would
do in his own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord
plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps,
some of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the
extension cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it
and was connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the
extension cord was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about
10.5 amps. This year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed
and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all
4 screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that
the jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess
that it is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My
vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs
to do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another
wire to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to
code?
And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they
do blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a
full wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage
of the LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot
better.

You may not need a pigtail. Try giving the wire a tug or two. A competent
electrician will leave 6-8" of slack in a new installation for just such a
contingency.

I had similar situation in a residence. They had sockets I'll call 1, 2, 3.
Sockets 2 and 3 would go dead now and again. I had a nearly impossible time
to convince them to let me take socket 1 apart, "that socket has never been
a problem".

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Steve Barker" wrote in message
...

I tore
my hair out for three days looking for a problem in a commercial
application ONLY to find out it was a daisy chained backstabbed outlet
behind a desk (UNUSED mind you) that was the issue. This place was
wired back when you could back stab 12ga. ARRRRRHHHHHHGGGG!!!

--
Steve Barker
remove the "not" from my address to email

I call those back-screw, which I consider OK.

As to back stabs, I rewire them wherever possible.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"JIMMIE" wrote in message
...

I replace all the residential grade outlets in my
house with quality commercial grade outlets. The are still backstab,
at least sort of. The wire is straight and it slides in a slot under
the screw. Just stick the wire in and tighten down the screw.

Jimmie

On 12/29/2011 9:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.


I don't have a big problem with backstab receptacles. Like anything
else, if done properly, with decent equipment it should work fine.
Unfortunately it's too easy to miss the clip and get a poor connection.
My preferred method is to use a pigtail, but I can say from experience
that many people have a better chance at making a backstab tight than
securing 3 or 4 wires under a wire nut. I've certainly seen more loose
wire nuts, than bad backstabs. Turning wires under screws is a good
choice, you just need to be sure that the wire is completely under the
screw. Screw clamp receptacles don't impress me. I think they work
better than anything on stranded wire, but can get a little dicey with
solid conductors. I've had them very tight , only to come loose when
folding the wires back into the box. YMMV

On 12/29/2011 10:25 AM, Nymshifting Top-poster wrote:
IMO, back-stab receptacles are a fire waiting to happen. I
can't believe they are even legal.

They are probably legal because there's little to no evidence that
they've caused any fires. From my experience I might consider them, an
open circuit waiting to happen.

On Dec 29, 6:54*pm, RBM wrote:
On 12/29/2011 10:25 AM, Nymshifting Top-poster wrote:

IMO, back-stab receptacles are a fire waiting to happen. I
can't believe they are even legal.

They are probably legal because there's little to no evidence that
they've caused any fires. From my experience I might consider them, an
open circuit waiting to happen.
___
You're one in a million RBM, one in a million...

-ChrisCoaster

On 12/29/2011 5:38 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back
stabbed outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would
do in his own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord
plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps,
some of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the
extension cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it
and was connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the
extension cord was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about
10.5 amps. This year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed
and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all
4 screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that
the jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess
that it is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My
vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs
to do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another
wire to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to
code?
And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they
do blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a
full wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage
of the LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot
better.

You may not need a pigtail. Try giving the wire a tug or two. A competent
electrician will leave 6-8" of slack in a new installation for just such a
contingency.


The pigtail isn't because the wire is short. He's looking for the best
pass through solution

On 12/29/2011 9:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I
did use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I had
mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this one,
the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th wire stub
to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded that the
electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a jerk and I
didn't want to push the issue.

On 12/29/2011 09:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

Personally, I would do the following, assuming that your receps are all
in 3-1/2" deep boxes (should be, if it's new construction, due to
revisions in NEC regarding wire fill):

1) go to supply house and get a contractor pack or two of "spec grade"
receptacles in your chosen style and color (I think when I redid my old
house, they were a little over $1 apiece at the real supply house, about
what the builder grade ones go for at the big box. To my mind using the
best quality stuff when it's not that expensive is a good idea.)

2) pigtail and wire nut as you have described above

3) realize that what you just did is massive overkill, but you won't
worry about your receptacles again for another 20-30 years.

I like pigtailing better than relying on the recep for pass through, but
in older houses that used the standard single gang boxes for receps with
two cables in the box, it can get kinda tight, and busting all those
boxes out of the wall is kind of a PITA. So I have on some work not
pigtailed, but then again, I figure w/ spec grade devices and working
slow and paying attention to what I'm doing, I still have a way better
connection than you typically find with backstabs installed by an
electrician's helper.

To make the job go faster, some spec grade receps use clamps under the
screws like most GFCI receps do, if you use those then you don't need to
loop the wires for each pigtail connection. I don't have part numbers
off the top of my head though.

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On 12/29/2011 11:52 AM, Ron wrote:
Steve Barker wrote:
. . . . . This place was wired back when you could back stab 12ga.
ARRRRRHHHHHHGGGG!!!

I am with you and others in not liking or using back stab outlets, although
I do use and like back-wired outlets.

But, I am curious...., I think I do remember there being back stab outlets
for 12ga wire in the past. Is that something that is no longer available or
no longer allowed by the current codes? (Again, I don't like them and don't
want to use them, but I am just curious if they are no longer allowed by
code).

Later revision to the NEC disallowed it, IIRC. (or maybe it was UL, I
don't know. In any case, it used to be legal, but now it's not.)

nate

--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

On 12/29/2011 05:38 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back
stabbed outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would
do in his own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord
plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps,
some of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the
extension cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it
and was connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the
extension cord was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about
10.5 amps. This year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed
and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all
4 screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that
the jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess
that it is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My
vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs
to do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another
wire to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to
code?
And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they
do blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a
full wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage
of the LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot
better.

You may not need a pigtail. Try giving the wire a tug or two. A competent
electrician will leave 6-8" of slack in a new installation for just such a
contingency.


The point of the pigtail is not wire length, it's to avoid passing a
potential 12+ amps of current through the little side tabs on a typical
duplex receptacle.

nate


--
replace "roosters" with "cox" to reply.
http://members.cox.net/njnagel

Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.

JIMMIE wrote:
On Dec 29, 10:25 am, "Nymshifting Top-poster"
wrote:
IMO, back-stab receptacles are a fire waiting to happen. I
can't believe they are even legal.

My personal choice is to buy high-quality back-wire
receptacles and use the receptacle as a daisy chain
junction.

Note: Quality back-wire receptacles allow you to put two
wires under one screw so that your downstream outlet current
isn't flowing through the jumper tab.

"Art wrote in message


That is what I did. I replace all the residential grade outlets in my
house with quality commercial grade outlets. The are still backstab,
at least sort of. The wire is straight and it slides in a slot under
the screw. Just stick the wire in and tighten down the screw.

Jimmie
Hmmm,
I never had any trouble using back stabbing. All is a matter of done
proper. Anyone ever took apart and looked inside of the thing? Then
you'll know what proper means. My light strings are all LED now. Current
draw is very little.

Josh wrote:
On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:20:59 -0500, Art
wrote:

New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of
back stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no
surprise to me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed
outlets and that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his
own house. Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into
an outlet in the living room with nothing connected to that extension
cord. The Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some
of the older 7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension
cord, which I remind you had not current flowing through it and was
connected to an upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord
was hot to the touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This
year I did a little checking on how the circuit was fed and found out
there were only 2 outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was
plugged into. So, I opened them up and pigtailed the looped through
Daisy chain using a wire nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2
outlets and the one where the Christmas tree was actually connected.
But before I measured voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at
the tree outlet and, of course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the
tree. Thinking about it, there were a total, including neutrals, 10
back stabs in line with the Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on
each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is,
which is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4
screws on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the
jumper piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it
is less bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote
would be for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they
were considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the
LED and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.


I agree that backstabbed connections are not the best, however the one
electrical issue we had in our house (10yo; this occurred about 2
years in) was related to a wire nut connection.

My wife went to turn on the TV, and as it came on the lights went out
in the room; all of the outlets were dead. Checked the circuit
breaker, and it hadn't tripped (and flipping it off/on didn't help).
Then I realized that one outlet in the hall was supposedly on the same
circuit, and it was working. Weird. So I started pulling plates on
all the outlets on the circuit, and lo and behold, the one behind the
TV (which was second in the chain) had a blackened section of wire
insulation and wire nut. Apparently the wire wasn't fully inserted,
and must have been arcing for a while before the load caused it to
disconnect for good.

Very scary to think that could have started a fire, and presumably
some of what the new Arc Fault breakers are intended to detect.

I redid that whole box's connections with pigtails and side-screw
connections, even though it wasn't the backstab at issue here.

Josh
Hmm,
So which gets blame? poor workmanship or backstab connection?

On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use
the pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the
changes. But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one
time. Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another
reason.
I did use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as
I had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the
same direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on
them, reverse the orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate
the outlet so the ground plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately
what needs fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain
orientation was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan
monkey spoke to them in a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O


What did the Army Corps of Engineers insist upon back when all plugs were
two pronged? Covering the outlet with a deflated football? At least
prominent warning signs? Prayer?

I've heard that rationalization before. Consider:
* What are the chances a plug is only partially inserted? Further, it's
inserted enough to make contact with the live terminals inside the fixture
but a small amount of the prongs are visible.
* What are the odds that something is dropped where it will hit this
mal-inserted plug.
* Now what are the chances that this dropped something is a) Conductive, and
b) Thin enough to fit in the gap
* Assuming all of the above probabilities come to pass, so what? The
intruding bit of metal will spark and sputter and it will either explode out
of the socket or the breaker will flip.

I suggest, based on the odds, that anything deleterious happening because
the ground plug is beneath the hot/neutral has never happened in the history
of the world.

On 12/31/2011 9:32 PM, HeyBub wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use
the pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the
changes. But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one
time. Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another
reason.
I did use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as
I had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the
same direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on
them, reverse the orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate
the outlet so the ground plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately
what needs fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain
orientation was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan
monkey spoke to them in a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O


What did the Army Corps of Engineers insist upon back when all plugs were
two pronged? Covering the outlet with a deflated football? At least
prominent warning signs? Prayer?

I've heard that rationalization before. Consider:
* What are the chances a plug is only partially inserted? Further, it's
inserted enough to make contact with the live terminals inside the fixture
but a small amount of the prongs are visible.
* What are the odds that something is dropped where it will hit this
mal-inserted plug.
* Now what are the chances that this dropped something is a) Conductive, and
b) Thin enough to fit in the gap
* Assuming all of the above probabilities come to pass, so what? The
intruding bit of metal will spark and sputter and it will either explode out
of the socket or the breaker will flip.

I suggest, based on the odds, that anything deleterious happening because
the ground plug is beneath the hot/neutral has never happened in the history
of the world.


Two pronged? What makes you think that in the 1980's all 120vac plugs
were two pronged? I have to admit that the Core of Engineers engineers
could be stricter than municipal engineering departments but I've had
the local city inspector insist that 120vac receptacles be installed
with the ground hole at the top. o_O

TDD

On Dec 31, 7:06*pm, The Daring Dufas
wrote:
On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:









Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. *I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. *I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when *I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. *I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. *The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. * On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. *Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.

The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O

TDD

When one of my friends had their home built all the outlets were
ground down. They had to be turned ground up so the little face didnt
frighten the kids.

Jimmie

On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:06:52 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O

IBM, at least the locations I worked in, were the same way. Ground-up was the
standard, for the reasons given here. If the outlet was sideways it was
neutral-up.

On 1/1/2012 12:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:06:52 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O

IBM, at least the locations I worked in, were the same way. Ground-up was the
standard, for the reasons given here. If the outlet was sideways it was
neutral-up.

If you take the flat metal shield or cover off something and lean it up
against a wall or surface of a workbench, there are times when it could
slide and fall against an electrical outlet with a plug in it possibly
knocking the plug part way out and touching a prong in the process. I
have seen any number of improbable things happen like that over the
years so a few minutes of thinking "what if" about safety never hurt
anyone. It's when you don't think that silly accidents happen and stuff
gets damaged or broken, including people. o_O

TDD

The Daring Dufas wrote:
What did the Army Corps of Engineers insist upon back when all plugs
were two pronged? Covering the outlet with a deflated football? At
least prominent warning signs? Prayer?

I've heard that rationalization before. Consider:
* What are the chances a plug is only partially inserted? Further,
it's inserted enough to make contact with the live terminals inside
the fixture but a small amount of the prongs are visible.
* What are the odds that something is dropped where it will hit this
mal-inserted plug.
* Now what are the chances that this dropped something is a)
Conductive, and b) Thin enough to fit in the gap
* Assuming all of the above probabilities come to pass, so what? The
intruding bit of metal will spark and sputter and it will either
explode out of the socket or the breaker will flip.

I suggest, based on the odds, that anything deleterious happening
because the ground plug is beneath the hot/neutral has never
happened in the history of the world.


Two pronged? What makes you think that in the 1980's all 120vac plugs
were two pronged? I have to admit that the Core of Engineers engineers
could be stricter than municipal engineering departments but I've had
the local city inspector insist that 120vac receptacles be installed
with the ground hole at the top. o_O


In the 1930s thru at least 1950, two prongs were all there were. I grew up
in a house that had only two-prong outlets. I've got stuff that has only two
prongs.

So what if the city inspector demanded this or that. Beat him about the head
and shoulders and he'll straighten up. Works every time.

Hey, that's bad advice. God, and Mayan monkeys appeared to me in dreams, and
told me that the ground hole has to be on top, in case something falls along
the wall, and shorts the two flat blades.


Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.

Actually, my Dad had this happen to him. He was a teen, and running a long
wire antenna in his parents cellar. For some reason, he dropped the wire in
front of electrical socket. It burned about half way through the blades of
the plug before the fuese blew. True story.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

I've heard that rationalization before. Consider:
* What are the chances a plug is only partially inserted? Further, it's
inserted enough to make contact with the live terminals inside the fixture
but a small amount of the prongs are visible.
* What are the odds that something is dropped where it will hit this
mal-inserted plug.
* Now what are the chances that this dropped something is a) Conductive, and
b) Thin enough to fit in the gap
* Assuming all of the above probabilities come to pass, so what? The
intruding bit of metal will spark and sputter and it will either explode out
of the socket or the breaker will flip.

I suggest, based on the odds, that anything deleterious happening because
the ground plug is beneath the hot/neutral has never happened in the history
of the world.

Now they look like Japanese who have been shot in the forehead?

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"JIMMIE" wrote in message
...

When one of my friends had their home built all the outlets were
ground down. They had to be turned ground up so the little face didnt
frighten the kids.

Jimmie

On 1/1/2012 6:53 AM, HeyBub wrote:
The Daring Dufas wrote:
What did the Army Corps of Engineers insist upon back when all plugs
were two pronged? Covering the outlet with a deflated football? At
least prominent warning signs? Prayer?

I've heard that rationalization before. Consider:
* What are the chances a plug is only partially inserted? Further,
it's inserted enough to make contact with the live terminals inside
the fixture but a small amount of the prongs are visible.
* What are the odds that something is dropped where it will hit this
mal-inserted plug.
* Now what are the chances that this dropped something is a)
Conductive, and b) Thin enough to fit in the gap
* Assuming all of the above probabilities come to pass, so what? The
intruding bit of metal will spark and sputter and it will either
explode out of the socket or the breaker will flip.

I suggest, based on the odds, that anything deleterious happening
because the ground plug is beneath the hot/neutral has never
happened in the history of the world.


Two pronged? What makes you think that in the 1980's all 120vac plugs
were two pronged? I have to admit that the Core of Engineers engineers
could be stricter than municipal engineering departments but I've had
the local city inspector insist that 120vac receptacles be installed
with the ground hole at the top. o_O


In the 1930s thru at least 1950, two prongs were all there were. I grew up
in a house that had only two-prong outlets. I've got stuff that has only two
prongs.

So what if the city inspector demanded this or that. Beat him about the head
and shoulders and he'll straighten up. Works every time.


I happen to be friendly with them to the point where the one's I know
will sign off on my work without much scrutiny because they know I do
it right. The guys who argue with the inspectors are the guys who wind
up having to rip things out and start over. I too grew up in older homes
in the 50's and even got electrical shocks from those vintage radio and
record players with a metal chassis having non-polarized plugs inserted
into the two pronged outlets. I never have problems with building
inspectors because I treat them with respect and if they tell me
something that I know to be wrong, I'll ask them in a non
confrontational way to show me in the code book. "Gee Inspector Bob, I
must have misunderstood that part of the code, could you help me
understand it? I have my NEC code book right here." ^_^

TDD

On 12/31/2011 9:18 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 12/29/2011 09:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

Personally, I would do the following, assuming that your receps are all
in 3-1/2" deep boxes (should be, if it's new construction, due to
revisions in NEC regarding wire fill):

1) go to supply house and get a contractor pack or two of "spec grade"
receptacles in your chosen style and color (I think when I redid my old
house, they were a little over $1 apiece at the real supply house, about
what the builder grade ones go for at the big box. To my mind using the
best quality stuff when it's not that expensive is a good idea.)

2) pigtail and wire nut as you have described above

3) realize that what you just did is massive overkill, but you won't
worry about your receptacles again for another 20-30 years.

I like pigtailing better than relying on the recep for pass through, but
in older houses that used the standard single gang boxes for receps with
two cables in the box, it can get kinda tight, and busting all those
boxes out of the wall is kind of a PITA. So I have on some work not
pigtailed, but then again, I figure w/ spec grade devices and working
slow and paying attention to what I'm doing, I still have a way better
connection than you typically find with backstabs installed by an
electrician's helper.

To make the job go faster, some spec grade receps use clamps under the
screws like most GFCI receps do, if you use those then you don't need to
loop the wires for each pigtail connection. I don't have part numbers
off the top of my head though.

nate


Ya, I've sort of decided to do the pigtail thing. I'll probably use the
original outlets as they do have screws too and are not that bad
quality. However, I think the electrician and drywall guy kind of
screwed up in several areas. The plaster ears on the outlet in a few
places, don't grab the drywall, and thus, when you push a plug into the
socket, it moves inward a bid. With plastic plates, the plate will
sometimes crack next to the screw. Ok, on my soapbox; these newly
required outlets which close the holes are really a royal pain. I guess
I should bite the bullet and replace them with the non-blocking ones
while doing the rewire. But, I have changed a few where we are
constantly plugging and unplugging; the old styles are soooooo much
nicer. Now that I've hijacked my own thread, I'll proliferate another
sub-thread.

On ground up or ground down ... this house was totally ground down, i.e.
"the face". I have right angle plugs with both orientations! I even
have one right angle plug that where the cord comes off at a 45 degree
angle! So, I turned the one where I plug the Christmas tree. It's a
heavy (14 gauge), flat air conditioner extension cord wired directly to
an X10 outlet in an outlet box on the train board below the tree. Now
this thread has gone fully 360 as I have looped back to the original
problem which showed up due to the large number of C7 lamps on the
Christmas tree.

On 12/31/2011 6:21 PM, Tony Hwang wrote:


Josh wrote:
On Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:20:59 -0500, Art
wrote:



I agree that backstabbed connections are not the best, however the one
electrical issue we had in our house (10yo; this occurred about 2
years in) was related to a wire nut connection.

My wife went to turn on the TV, and as it came on the lights went out
in the room; all of the outlets were dead. Checked the circuit
breaker, and it hadn't tripped (and flipping it off/on didn't help).
Then I realized that one outlet in the hall was supposedly on the same
circuit, and it was working. Weird. So I started pulling plates on
all the outlets on the circuit, and lo and behold, the one behind the
TV (which was second in the chain) had a blackened section of wire
insulation and wire nut. Apparently the wire wasn't fully inserted,
and must have been arcing for a while before the load caused it to
disconnect for good.

Very scary to think that could have started a fire, and presumably
some of what the new Arc Fault breakers are intended to detect.

I redid that whole box's connections with pigtails and side-screw
connections, even though it wasn't the backstab at issue here.

Josh
Hmm,
So which gets blame? poor workmanship or backstab connection?

Well, I didn't see anything which led me to believe there was a
workmanship problem. However, as I stated previously, I eliminated 4
volts of drop, due to the back stab outlets. And, this only involved 3
outlets! Imagine what would happen at the end of a long run with these
things.

On 1/1/2012 11:56 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
On 12/31/2011 9:18 AM, Nate Nagel wrote:
On 12/29/2011 09:20 AM, Art Todesco wrote:
New 2 1/2 year old house. During construction I noticed the use of back
stabbed outlets. I complained to the electrician and he (no surprise to
me) said there is nothing wrong with using the back stabbed outlets and
that it wasn't anything different than he would do in his own house.
Well, last Christmas, I had an extension cord plugged into an outlet in
the living room with nothing connected to that extension cord. The
Christmas tree was on. We use the retro-look C7 lamps, some of the older
7 watt and some newer 4 watt. I disconnected the extension cord, which I
remind you had not current flowing through it and was connected to an
upstream outlet. The male plug on the extension cord was hot to the
touch. I measured the tree at about 10.5 amps. This year I did a little
checking on how the circuit was fed and found out there were only 2
outlets before the one where the Christmas tree was plugged into. So, I
opened them up and pigtailed the looped through Daisy chain using a wire
nut and stub wire to the outlets on those 2 outlets and the one where
the Christmas tree was actually connected. But before I measured
voltages. After, I had about 4 volts higher at the tree outlet and, of
course, no heating of the 2 outlets before the tree. Thinking about it,
there were a total, including neutrals, 10 back stabs in line with the
Christmas tree, so that's .4 volt drop on each.

Anyway, I want to "fix" this throughout the house. My question is, which
is better, using a wire nut and stub to the outlet or using all 4 screws
on the outlet to preform the loop through? I noticed that the jumper
piece on the outlets is pretty small .... I would guess that it is less
bulk than a 14 gauge wire .... but it is in open air. My vote would be
for the wire nut, but I'd like to hear from the experts.

BTW, I notice on another outlet that he actually used the back stabs to
do the loop-through and tapped off one of the screws with another wire
to Tee off to someplace else. Electrically this works, but is it to
code?

And, I will be looking at LED C7s for the future, but they really are
not quite up in brightness yet. I put some LED C9s outside and they were
considerably dimmer than their room-heater equivalents and they do
blink. But as I have done on other LED Christmas lights, I use a full
wave rectifier in line. I know this doubles up on the wattage of the LED
and probably shortens its life, but they do look a whole lot better.

Personally, I would do the following, assuming that your receps are all
in 3-1/2" deep boxes (should be, if it's new construction, due to
revisions in NEC regarding wire fill):

1) go to supply house and get a contractor pack or two of "spec grade"
receptacles in your chosen style and color (I think when I redid my old
house, they were a little over $1 apiece at the real supply house, about
what the builder grade ones go for at the big box. To my mind using the
best quality stuff when it's not that expensive is a good idea.)

2) pigtail and wire nut as you have described above

3) realize that what you just did is massive overkill, but you won't
worry about your receptacles again for another 20-30 years.

I like pigtailing better than relying on the recep for pass through, but
in older houses that used the standard single gang boxes for receps with
two cables in the box, it can get kinda tight, and busting all those
boxes out of the wall is kind of a PITA. So I have on some work not
pigtailed, but then again, I figure w/ spec grade devices and working
slow and paying attention to what I'm doing, I still have a way better
connection than you typically find with backstabs installed by an
electrician's helper.

To make the job go faster, some spec grade receps use clamps under the
screws like most GFCI receps do, if you use those then you don't need to
loop the wires for each pigtail connection. I don't have part numbers
off the top of my head though.

nate


Ya, I've sort of decided to do the pigtail thing. I'll probably use the
original outlets as they do have screws too and are not that bad
quality. However, I think the electrician and drywall guy kind of
screwed up in several areas. The plaster ears on the outlet in a few
places, don't grab the drywall, and thus, when you push a plug into the
socket, it moves inward a bid. With plastic plates, the plate will
sometimes crack next to the screw. Ok, on my soapbox; these newly
required outlets which close the holes are really a royal pain. I guess
I should bite the bullet and replace them with the non-blocking ones
while doing the rewire. But, I have changed a few where we are
constantly plugging and unplugging; the old styles are soooooo much
nicer. Now that I've hijacked my own thread, I'll proliferate another
sub-thread.

On ground up or ground down ... this house was totally ground down, i.e.
"the face". I have right angle plugs with both orientations! I even have
one right angle plug that where the cord comes off at a 45 degree angle!
So, I turned the one where I plug the Christmas tree. It's a heavy (14
gauge), flat air conditioner extension cord wired directly to an X10
outlet in an outlet box on the train board below the tree. Now this
thread has gone fully 360 as I have looped back to the original problem
which showed up due to the large number of C7 lamps on the Christmas tree.

I sympathize about the dead front receptacles. This is typical 1st
generation stuff. You can shim the receptacle screws to prevent the
plate breaking, or you can also buy white painted metal plates. They're
almost identical to the plastic ones, and they hold the outlet rigid

Sam E" "" imnota\ wrote:
On 12/31/2011 05:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
[snip]

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain
orientation was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan
monkey spoke to them in a dream and relayed the straight skinny.



According to the Preservers' original manual, outlets should be
installed with the ground sideways, so it's in front according to
planetary rotation. This makes it consistent with the adiledicnander
field and prevents unwanted hyperspatial vortex formation.

Is that dictum reversed for the Southern Hemisphere?

Only if gravity pushes away from the planet.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


According to the Preservers' original manual, outlets should be
installed with the ground sideways, so it's in front according to
planetary rotation. This makes it consistent with the adiledicnander
field and prevents unwanted hyperspatial vortex formation.

Is that dictum reversed for the Southern Hemisphere?

On Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:20:01 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 1/1/2012 12:47 AM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:06:52 -0600, The Daring Dufas
wrote:

On 12/31/2011 5:11 PM, HeyBub wrote:
Art Todesco wrote:
Thanks for all the good discussion. I was primarily curious what
everyone thought and I now have a good idea. I will probably use the
pigtail/wire nut method as much as possible, when I make the changes.
But, I probably won't go and do it wholesale, all at one time.
Actually, the other day I had to open 3 outlets for another reason. I did
use the screws to daisy chain in 2 of 3 outlets. The 3rd, as I
had mentioned used the back stabs plus one pair of screws. On this
one, the 3 wires were connected together with a wire nut and a 4th
wire stub to the outlet screw. Yes, I guess I should have demanded
that the electrician do it "my way", however, the guy was kind of a
jerk and I didn't want to push the issue.

Trick: Are all your original outlets ground-plugs pointing in the same
direction? Either up or down? As you replace or improve on them, reverse the
orientation - if the ground plug was up, rotate the outlet so the ground
plug is down. Or vice-versa.

Then, as you progress with the project, you can tell immediately what needs
fixing.

Pay no attention to those who say God told them that a certain orientation
was righteous and the other sinful. Or that a Mayan monkey spoke to them in
a dream and relayed the straight skinny.


The engineers on The Army Core of Engineers job I was on wanted all
ground holes at the top of the receptacle for vertical installations
and the neutral at the top for horizontal receptacles. Obviously it
was to prevent fireworks or unintended enlightenment of someone if a
piece of metal fell on a partially inserted plug. I've seen some
European standard plugs that that have partially insulated blades to
prevent that sort of thing from happening. It's a bit odd looking to
see that huge European plug on a small lamp cord. o_O

IBM, at least the locations I worked in, were the same way. Ground-up was the
standard, for the reasons given here. If the outlet was sideways it was
neutral-up.

If you take the flat metal shield or cover off something and lean it up
against a wall or surface of a workbench, there are times when it could
slide and fall against an electrical outlet with a plug in it possibly
knocking the plug part way out and touching a prong in the process. I
have seen any number of improbable things happen like that over the
years so a few minutes of thinking "what if" about safety never hurt
anyone. It's when you don't think that silly accidents happen and stuff
gets damaged or broken, including people. o_O

TDD
I had my nice 1 inch wide stanley tape measure spit fire from a plug
one day when measuring behind a desk. I didn't feel anything, but
sparks flew, it stunk, and my tape was never the same again!!