Bare wire connection techniques.

Hi,

There must be a simpler way to connect the bare wire inside a duplex box. When I run a circuit into a duplex recepticle box, to an outlet, then back out again on to the next box, I wonder how to connect the bare wires together and at the same time, to the recepticle.

In the past, I have cut a 6" lenght of bare wire to connect to the duplex recepticle, then tie it to the line in and line out bare wires with a wire nut. This makes for alot of work and a crowded box.

I recently wired a room and changed my method to just hand twisting the bare wires, going in and out of the box, together, leaving a tail long enought to screw to the ground plug on the recepticle. This was fast, easy and not crowded, but is it safe?

Lugnut.

 

Sounds like your putting 2 wires under the same screw terminal which is not permitted unless the screw terminal device is UL approved for 2 wires. Stick with how you've been doing it, you'll have a better splice and won't risk losing your ground path on all the devices donwstream should a wire come loose from the screw terminal.

 

Lugnut,
The equipment grounding conductors (bare wires) are required to be joined together with an approved method. You can't just twist tehm together. You might try a "greenie" wire nut.
http://www.idealindustries.com/IDEAL-EZ/prodcat.nsf/Tables/WingNut?OpenDocumen
Don(resqcapt19)

 

I agree. The green wire nuts with a hole in the end are a very slick solution for this problem. And very easy to use.

 

I love you guys!!

I have had those green wire nuts for over a year but never realized how to make use of the little hole in the end of the cap.

Now I see I can leave a few inches of wire protruding through the hole to attach to the screw, and still wire nut the two wires together.

That may seem simple to you guys, but this is glorious information to me! And thanks for the code tip about hand twisting the wires too.

Lugnut, a happy camper!

 

When you strip you Romex sheath off the conductors in the box then leave one of the bare conductors about 6" longer than the others cut off evenly with each other. Then slide the greenie wire nut over the 6" longer bare wire and twist all the bares together. Then shove them and the wire nut into the back of the box. This will leave you plenty of tail to avoid stiffness of the conductor when you install your receptacle and also place the bare wires behind the insulated wires creating a separation of those bare wires from the receptacle device thus limiting chances of any short circuiting of those bare exposed wires. The 6" bare tail and the 6" insulated black and white wires can be bent in a "Z" pattern so that the conductors can easily fold into the box without adding excess pressure on the receptacle device connections. Makes for an easier connection and also make the next electrician that works on that receptacle happier because he can pull out the receptacle and still have wire to work with easily also.

Good Luck

Wg