Today's HUD Wreck Finds

Apr 01, 2008 5 Replies

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Red Green 18 years ago

Rain all day here. Might as well hit up some inside issues.

Outlet shows faulty wiring with one of those plug in outlet analyzers. Here's what I found.

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The "electricians" thoughts...if they had any at all: Oh what the hell. They all connect back in the panel box anyway. Oh here's an empty hole. It fits. Must go here. Why use those pesky screws. Anyhow, they're kinda dirty.

My thoughts: Gee that backstabbed white might have unsheathed wire showing because...it's lose and falling out maybe? Wonder why the "electrican" didn't just backstab the ground on the hot side. It's closer.

And further up the same line

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The "electricians" thoughts... Hmmm, broken wire. I'll just reattach to this screw securly. Let's see. This screw is on the same side of the outlet as where it was. Must be just another place to attach same connection. Lucky me they backstabbed all the other wires!

My thoughts:

The "electricians" new connection seems to be wrapped the wrong way. The new connection has a kinked loop. I don't think the new connections is even around the screw.

In the end I just threw out the outlets, cut bare wire ends off to sheathing, restripped and attached to screws of new outlet. Green lights on analyzer.

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Big_Jake 18 years ago

Did you use a ground screw on the metal box to bond the romex ground to the box?

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Red Green 18 years ago

Big_Jake wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@m71g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

The duplex wings actually do ground the box to the ground terminal. I'm guessing code says it has to be wired so I just do it anyway. Besides, often the duplex screws are left loose so the outlet doesn't go too far in the wall on misaligned plastic boxes where the wings don't catch the drywall cutout edge.

Thought ya had me huh? :-) Thanks for mentioning though. I'm no electrician. Just a better hack than the former "electrician".

I was kind of disappointed there was no duct tape used in by the former electrician.

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Bubba 18 years ago

The maker of "back-stabbed" outlets and the electricians that use them both need to be shot. Those are the reasons our area requires $50 "Arc-Fault" breakers (not GFI's) in the main panel servicing the bedrooms of a new or remodeled home. The bare wire is definitely on the wrong terminal and wrapped the wrong way. The red wire nut back in the box holding the bare ground wires should technically be a green wire nut incase you're interested. Bubba

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Red Green 18 years ago

Bubba wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Not sure I've ever seen green ones. Color coding to me was always thought to be the combos of gauge wire that can be used and the colors can differ between mfgrs.

Thanks for the input though Bubba.

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Big_Jake 18 years ago

innews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I think the box even calls them "Greenies". Typically, they have a hole in the end where you can feed a ground wire out the top and attach it to a ground screw.

Here's a link from a manufacturer:

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Also, the "wings" on the duplex outlet are actually not adequate as a grounding means unless the outlet is "self-grounding" where it has a "spring" which bonds one of the screws to the outlet itself. These outlets cost around $1.50 in my area, and are labeled as self grounding.

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