This past weekend, I walked around several new homes that had just completed the electrical rough in. One thing I noticed was that in all the switch boxes was that some of the wires had already been stripped and some had not. To be clearer, all of the wires had the protective covering removed, but only certain individual wires had been stripped like they were ready to hook up to the switch. Is this so the person hooking up the switches knows which one is hot (for a two way) and which is common (for a 3-way). I don't remember about the receptacles, but do you rough it in the same way?

 

Generally, I think most people who do electrical rough-ins make up everything in a switch box. That is, they wire-nut all the connections and just leave the pigtails for the switch(es). You didn't say if you saw any wire nuts or not. Could be that the electrician doing these houses had his laborers prep the boxes for connections so that his skilled workers could come by and make the connections. My guess is he wanted to make sure the connections were made properly both mechanically and electrically.

 

Yes, the wire nuts were connecting wires. AS usual, the grounds were connected and placed in the back of the box, then the neutrals were wire nutted properly. And some of the blacks were wire nutted-- I guess some were jumping power,etc... I just found it strange that some were stripped and some were not.