Thurs Pic: Why Backstabbers Should be Shot!

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jumper

jumper

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Rick Christopherson said:
Ummm, you wouldn't want me to aim for a leg...I'm not a very good shot. :jawdrop::sick:

Actually I am kind of intrigued by this discussion. Some are saying that Wago-type clamps don't have the failure mode of backstab devices. If that is true, then they do resolve the common problem of wire nuts with more than just a couple wires.

I didn't mention it, but one of the junction boxes we pulled apart had at least 4 wires in a wire nut, and upon pulling the nut, found one of the wires was short and barely clamped by the nut (and the original EC pre-twisted this bundle). A wago-style clamp, if they do hold firmly, would reduce this problem quite a bit.

I've had several of these Wago-brand clamps in my shop for several years, that I picked up as samples at the Power-Gen conference in Las Vegas several years ago, but I never bothered to play with them at all. I'll have to take a closer look at them before passing judgment on them.
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This was a cool thread on the subject.

http://forums.mikeholt.com/showthread.php?t=108516&highlight=
 
cowboyjwc

cowboyjwc

Moderator
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Location
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electricguy61 said:
I guess I'm just blessed.

I've backstabbed everything I can for 30+ years, used wago's for at least 10 years, and haven't had a failure that I'm aware of yet (when the wago or backstab device was properly installed)

I've had a few wirenuts fail (probably not installed properly), seen backstabs by others fail, seen purple nurples catch fire, seen tons of crimp connections fail, but never a problem with properly installed wagos or back stabs.
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I'm right there with you.
 
weressl

weressl

Esteemed Member
Location
Texas by the Gulf, geat crab, great shrimp
electricguy61 said:
I guess I'm just blessed.

I've backstabbed everything I can for 30+ years, used wago's for at least 10 years, and haven't had a failure that I'm aware of yet (when the wago or backstab device was properly installed)

I've had a few wirenuts fail (probably not installed properly), seen backstabs by others fail, seen purple nurples catch fire, seen tons of crimp connections fail, but never a problem with properly installed wagos or back stabs.
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It seem to me that no major brand manufacturer can AFFORD to market a faulty product.

Having said that quality control is another issue and I have experienced that with several major manufacturers' ENGINEERED product that requires factory assembly. The fault seem to be occurring when machine manufactured and automated assembled components such as circuit breakers get put together and manually assembled with other components into a a panel-board. Six sigma notwithstanding.
 
E

electricmonkpv

Member
Location
United States
Cause busted duplex receptacles, too (?)

Cause busted duplex receptacles, too (?)

Yeah, this all makes sense. How do these things get listed? I seem to be gathering anecdotal evidence that duplex receptacles that fail mechanically, do so in very high correlation with the use of back-stab terminals. Is the backstab mechanically affecting the receptacle? Is the poor termination of a back-stab resulting in unusual heat buildup? Is it a combination of both conditions? Anyway, maybe half of the falling-apart duplex receptacles I replace are also back-stabbed receptacles, while maybe 5% of all receptacles are back-stabbed (or, one can only hope it's that few).




Rick Christopherson said:
I am not an electrician and try not to pretend to be one, but I do sometimes get called for difficult troubleshooting. Yesterday my father asked me to help him troubleshoot a periodic failure of lights in a bathroom that he wasn't able to isolate. It's a fairly new house in an upscale ($$$$$) neighborhood, but it was already known that the EC had used backstabs for everything. And I mean EVERYTHING. I even discovered they used WAGO connectors in some of their boxes because a wirenut would obviously take too long to thread on the wires.

View attachment 5893

The homeowner reported that the lights were progressively getting more and more unpredictable for turning on. My father had tighten some loose wire nuts in the 3-gang box and it appeared to fix the problem, but that was just a fluke. The next morning, the homeowner reported that it took at least a minute for the lights to finally come on, and that is when I got called out.

When we got there yesterday morning, the bathroom lights were dead with no voltage. The phantom voltage (I do hate that term) that vanished when the lamp switches were closed, told me it was an open circuit. Because it was an open circuit, we couldn't even trace which circuit they came from. So we started opening every junction box in all of the adjoining (and even non-adjoining) rooms to find it.

A half hour later, the lights suddenly snapped on, and we quickly traced which circuit they originated from.....they were supplied from the back sitting room, which was 2 rooms away from the bathroom. I wanted to check the circuit while it was still live, so I picked the closest receptacle and started to pull the cover plate.

As I stooped down to pop the cover, I noticed the reflection of an orange indicator light between the receptacle and cover plate. What the heck?!? It looked just like the orange indicators from old GFCI receptacles, except it was inside the junction box. That just didn't make any sense.

When I got the cover plate off, I was blown away with what I saw. It wasn't an indicator light. The side terminal on the receptacle was cherry-red (orange actually). I had to turn off the flash on my cell phone to capture this, so everything came out red, but you get the idea. You can see the bright glow from the lower backstab.

View attachment 5891

After cutting the power, I carefully pulled the receptacle, but even the yoke was still hot to the touch. If this had gone just a little longer, they could have possibly lost the house. I am recommending to the homeowner that she bring someone in and redo every box in the house to eliminate all of the backstabs and WAGO clamps.

Oh by the way, we haven't figured out where that loose "hot" goes to because we can't find anything that is dead, but it was in the proximity of the screw lugs on the outlet and may have played a role in this. The associated neutral is backstabbed into the outlet, but this hot was never connected and both screw lugs are fully unscrewed. The EC used backstab for 2 wires, and then used the screw lugs if he needed more.

View attachment 5892
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kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
electricmonkpv said:
Yeah, this all makes sense. How do these things get listed? I seem to be gathering anecdotal evidence that duplex receptacles that fail mechanically, do so in very high correlation with the use of back-stab terminals. Is the backstab mechanically affecting the receptacle? Is the poor termination of a back-stab resulting in unusual heat buildup? Is it a combination of both conditions? Anyway, maybe half of the falling-apart duplex receptacles I replace are also back-stabbed receptacles, while maybe 5% of all receptacles are back-stabbed (or, one can only hope it's that few).
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Well they generally are the cheapest receptacles you can find. The specification grade and other more expensive ones generally don't have the back stab feature, back clamps yes, back stab no.
 
steve66

steve66

Senior Member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
Engineer
Doesn't the homeowner deserve any of the blame for continuing to use a light fixture when there is an obvious problem. And for waiting until the light is almost completely unusable before calling someone??
 
renosteinke

renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
I've replaced plenty of receptacles that look like the one in the pictures ... receptacles that had the wires neatly wrapped around the screws.

I think a 'reality check' is in order.

UL tests are a minimum, not an ideal. That's why some stuff costs pennies, while other costs pounds. That's why we have various 'grades' of product marketed.

I argued before that designing to a minimum will lead to minimal performance. Let's face it; darn few wiring devices are used to anything near their 'rated' capacity for any length of time.

Look at the common "outlet strip." We're entering the time of year where folks plug space heaters into these things. You'd think that, with the 15-amp circuit breaker built into them, that they could withstand prolonged use. Yet, come Easter, these nearly all of these strips will show signs of heat damage from the heater load.

More can fail in a device than the wire termination. I've seen many that had something else within be the part that failed. Amazingly enough, this seems to happen more often with the 'cheap' devices than with the expensive ones ..... but it seems that 99% of the cheap ones last for decades without problem.

The pictures are nice, but the conclusion is not supported.
 
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jim dungar

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Wisconsin
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PE (Retired) - Power Systems
Sometimes the moderators are busy elsewhere.

As always PM one of us if you feel further discussion is warranted.
 
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