hey y'all welcome back to the channel
adam here and today i'm going to be
showing you some of the biggest mistakes
that i see diyers especially making when
it comes to doing their own wiring and
especially when it comes to making their
connections between wires or their
splicing of wires i'm going to show you
the most common mistakes what they look
like show you the ways that they should
be done or more recommended ways of
doing them so let's go ahead and jump
right in so first i have two solid core
wires that i want to splice together and
this is probably the most common
combination that there is you may from
time to time have solid core to strand
it however and i'll show you that in a
little bit so the most common mistake
that i see most diy-ers make is they'll
take their two wires that they're going
to be joining together they'll put them
together and they'll just take a wire
nut put it on top
and then just tighten it down
like so and then this is where one of
the most debatable subjects come into
play and i've seen mostly from diyers
debating this but i've also seen some
electricians debating it as well
as far as is this good enough is it good
enough just to put two wires together
and then put a wing nut over the top of
it and my answer is it depends and i'll
get to that in just a moment but let's
go to the code book and see what the
code book says so according to the nec
110.3b
it says that equipment that is listed
labeled or both shall be installed and
used in accordance with any instructions
included in the listing or labeling so
what they're basically saying is you are
to follow the instructions or the
recommendations of whatever is written
on whatever product you are using so
let's check out the packaging so no
doubt many of you have seen this
packaging ideal is one of the top
producers of wire nuts so let's turn it
over here to the back for the
instructions and as you can see here
they've got a diagram here as to how it
should look and then they also have the
instructions down here now when we get
to the pre-twisting which is number
three what it says is pre-twisting is
acceptable but not required so to answer
your question as far as code goes it is
not required to pre-twist however
this is still wrong in my opinion
because we're supposed to look at the
labeling and what does the label show it
shows putting the wire nut on with the
wires at the same length but over here
it shows to where they twist it so much
to where you can actually see the wiring
underneath of the wire nut twisting
because what that's going to do is it's
going to guarantee that the wires
underneath of the wire nut are also
twisting but this is what i see the
majority of the time there is no
twisting underneath of the nut and it's
just in there like this to where when
you go to push this into the back of the
box it's not hard for this to rotate
even just a slight revolution over to
the left and then all the wires can just
fall out like that without hardly any
pulling on them so if you are not going
to pre-twist what needs to happen is
they need to be at the same length and
then twist that wire nut on and until
you can get to where you can't twist it
anymore keep going even further you want
to start seeing it to start twisting
down below the wire nut as well down in
this area all right so as you can see
this would be much more acceptable
because now we know that we have a good
connection underneath of the wire nut
and we also know that while this is all
intertangled here together it's much
less likely to be able to be pulled out
or vibrate out over time and as you can
see underneath we have a nice joint
there but this is not the way that i
even recommend doing and this is not the
way that the majority of electricians
recommend splicing wires together the
vast majority of electricians will tell
you to do this to take your two wires
and line them up with each other and
then take a pair of linesman pliers and
then you're just going to start by
pre-twisting those wires together and
now as you can see i've got a nice joint
here then after those are twisted
together you'll just take your linesman
pliers and snip off the very top to make
everything perfectly equal now that all
that's together that's when they will
take their wire nut and they will put it
over the wires
and then twist it down
like so so we've got the nice braiding
that's going on underneath of the wire
nut again but the reason that a lot of
them advise doing it this way is before
you put the wire nut on you can see your
joint you can see that you have a nice
joint where the wiring is making nice
contact with each other the wire nut
itself is basically serving as an
addition to the connection that's going
on between these two wires and it's also
containing the tops of the wires so that
you can't get shocked and also so that
there's no ground faults like if you
were using a metal box or something like
that but you'll see when i take the wire
nut off
the wires still stay together they don't
come apart and so you really have very
very little to no risk of there being
any issues with these two losing
connection or arcing
all right so now let's talk about
connecting a solid core wire to a
stranded wire
so first i need to cut some of the
insulation off of my wire if you take
your wire strippers and if you look at
your wire strippers you'll see
where it says solid and it also says
over here on the other side it says
stranded that means that these are the
numbers you want to follow for stranded
these are what you want to follow for
solid this is 14 gauge so we want to put
it underneath of that number 14 on the
stranded side so just put it underneath
of there take off about three quarters
of an inch
and there's our stranded wire all right
so again very similar to the solid core
to solid core what people will do is
they'll just take their stranded put it
up next to their solid core take their
wire nut put underneath of the wire nut
and just spin it on
all right so one thing that happens a
lot of times when you do it this way and
you just put them up next to each other
is if you look underneath of this wire
nut you can see that the stranded wire
actually dropped down
from the solid core wire so we know that
the solid core wire is seated higher up
in the wire nut than the stranded wire
which could point to not having a very
good connection here between the
stranded wire and the solid core and
also what can tend to happen especially
using stranded wire is it's not going to
hold as well in a wire nut it didn't
take a whole lot of force to pull that
out and as you can see in this
particular case just like with the solid
core when you don't turn it enough we
barely got that stranded wire to start
wrapping around this solid core wire but
let's say that you did think that you
did it right and you went ahead and you
pre-twisted this and then you went and
put your wire nut in on top
and you really tighten you made sure
that you tightened it down
like so well what can still happen is it
doesn't take a whole lot of force it'll
take more but not a whole lot
and out comes the stranded wire
now as you can see it was starting to do
a much better job of curling around that
solid core wire so that connection
probably would have been okay but it
still was not curled nearly enough
around that solid core wire and again a
lot of it has to do with when they were
put underneath of the wire nut you tried
to put them up equally
this stranded dropped down below so it
did not seat
up in the top of the wire nut well
enough to really get a hold of it and
bite into that stranded to really wrap
it around the solid core wire and i see
this most often on light fixtures
because a lot of times your light
fixtures come with your stranded wire
and of course your romex that's running
through your walls is always solid core
so when i'm connecting a stranded wire
to a solid core wire what i like to do
is i like to make sure
that i have a little bit more of my
stranded wire exposed than my solid core
wire and the reason for that is this is
going to be doing the vast majority of
the wrapping around this wire over here
now i can see the argument a little bit
more for not pre-twisting these as the
wire nut as long as you get seated up in
there is going to do a really good job
of wrapping it around it however i still
recommend
pre-twisting
the solid core and the stranded together
and one thing to note is you do want to
make sure
not to tighten down too much when you're
pre twisting on the stranded because
what can happen is these stranded wires
are kind of flimsy and they could be
easy to break off and therefore you
would make your wiring a little bit
weaker just going to clean it up a
little bit
and so as you can see there's a nice
bond between the strands and the solid
core the strands are completely
encompassing the solid core wire but i
still definitely want to add my wire nut
on so i'll just take my wire nut push it
all the way up into the top till it
seats and then just really tighten these
down and i really want to make sure that
it's nice and tight i've got this nice
curling going on down below
and when i go to pull it out
there's no pulling that out of that wire
nut so i know i've got a nice connection
underneath of it it's all seated nicely
up in the spring that's in the top of
these wire nuts which helps to hold
everything together bite into the wiring
and also it's conductive to help pass
the power along also really quickly if
you find this video be helpful and
you're finding it's helping to splice up
your life do me a big favor hit that
thumbs up button right down below to let
me know that it's being helpful for you
and it also helps to spread out to other
people so maybe it can help them as well
i really appreciate it let's get back
into it so there is another product that
can be used aside from a wire nut that i
can get behind especially when
connecting solid core to stranded it
kind of takes away the mystery again as
to whether or not you're going to have a
good connection and it kind of is dummy
proof and that's this product right here
this is a wego 2-2-1 and these are
basically splicing devices where you put
your wires into these holes right here
you've got this lever right here that
basically when it's up you can put your
wiring in and flip it down holds the
wiring into place and then on the bottom
side right here this little piece of
metal here this is then what makes the
connection between this wire and this
wire and of course they make bigger ones
than this but for these in particular i
do think that these are a fairly good
option
when trying to make a connection between
a stranded and a solid core wire now
there is a following for these where
they've made it pretty clear that a lot
of them believe that huegos are really
the only way to go
on all installations i personally can't
get behind that i think that there's a
different tool for a different job and
if you guys would like for me to make a
video comparing this to say they've also
got these push connections that you just
push the wiring into
or of course also wire nuts if you guys
would like for me to make a video
comparing all of these and showing what
installations i think that they all work
best in leave a comment down in the
comment section and i'll be sure to make
that
let me get my wiring what i want to do
is i want to strip off maybe about a
half an inch off of each of these i just
kind of like to twist the strands on
these together just to make them
stronger all right so now i've got my
solid core here i've got my stranded
here
and i've got my way go so what i'm going
to do is i'm going to pick up on both of
these levers on the way go so they're in
the upright position i'm going to take
my solid core first it really doesn't
matter which one first push it all the
way in until it's seated you can turn it
up on the opposite side and you can see
that my lead is clearly all the way
through touching that metal so now what
i can do is i can just clamp down on it
by putting that lever down on where the
wire is
and if i give it a good pull
as you can see it's not going to come
out so now i've still got my other lever
that's up so i'll take my stranded wire
and then put it up into the other hole
underneath of that lever
i like to always flip them over to make
sure that they're seated correctly
they're all the way up and then here at
the bottom you can see that there's no
insulation up underneath of the metal so
we know we're going to have a good
connection so now that they're seated
correctly i'll just flip down that lever
and as you can see they aren't coming
out of there at all so super simple
device they certainly have their place
again i'll have links down in the
description down below where you can
pick these up along with all the other
products that i have shown you in this
video to make your splices so while i
hope this video was really helpful for
you i'm going to put some links right
over here of some other electrical
projects that i've done in the past feel
free to check those out and if this
video was helpful for you please let me
know by giving the video a thumbs up and
of course if you have any questions or
comments at all leave those down in the
comments down below and i'll catch you
all in the next one