Do you twist your solid wires together before you put them in a wirenut.

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Do you twist your solid wires together before you put them in a wirenut.

  • yes i twist them

    Votes: 93 73.2%
  • no i do not

    Votes: 34 26.8%

  • Total voters
    127
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480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
a coworker and I got into a discussion about twisting solid wires together in a Junction box before you put them in a wirenut.

what is your opinion


I don't know..... I've never met you or your co-worker.
bravo-8.gif
 

growler

Senior Member
Location
Atlanta,GA
a coworker and I got into a discussion about twisting solid wires together in a Junction box before you put them in a wirenut.

what is your opinion

I see that you are a maintenance electrician. If you are doing work where you may have to come back and repair even years from now I think twisting connections is definately worth the time.

I'm old school and I twist but I have worked for companies that thought it was a waste of time so it being their nickel I did what I was being paid to do.
 

Barndog

Senior Member
Location
Spring Creek Pa
I see that you are a maintenance electrician. If you are doing work where you may have to come back and repair even years from now I think twisting connections is definately worth the time.

I'm old school and I twist but I have worked for companies that thought it was a waste of time so it being their nickel I did what I was being paid to do.

I like to twist my solids together but when you have to take part of the connection out. it can be a pain to break them apart. We dont use alot of soild here other than metal flex mostly. but one of the buildings here was wired in the early 70's and its all solid wire.
 

tortuga

Code Historian
Location
Oregon
Occupation
Electrical Design
1-3 #14 - 12's I don't pre twist. I use a the 5/16 open end of a Klien 10in one driver to twist wirenuts.

(I only work with solid wire on residential with romex. If they made stranded romex I would buy it. Especially a #10-2 romex with a red and black and green stranded.)
 

hurk27

Senior Member
nuts are designed to insulate and isolate live bare conductors and are not designed to make a connection....in my opinion anyway.

If that was so we wouldn't be require to put wire nuts on EGC's (yes I know there are other methods)

But as for the OP, I have no problem of not twisting before installing a wire nut, as long as the wire nut is twisted to the point a twist shows where the wires enter the cap, the problem is it takes allot of hard twisting to achieve this and I see many times this is not done as per instruction of the wire nut manufacture, But with my week wrist, I'll keep on twisting before wire nut, much easier with lineman's then with nut.

Kind of funny, I was working at a restaurant this week because of lost power on several circuits and every one of them was a bad connection under the wire nut, and the wires was straight as an arrow, never twisted or the nut turned until it twisted the wires, Ideal state right on the bag, pre twisting is not necessary, but you are to twist the connector until at least 3 turns in the wire is visible outside of the cap, or something to that effect.
Try doing that with 4 #12s or 2 #10s not going to happen.
 

jaylectricity

Senior Member
Location
Massachusetts
Occupation
licensed journeyman electrician
I feel that the wirenut should just be a protective covering and a security to the mechanical connection. I understand you are not required to and some manufacturers instructions tell you that you don't have to. I just think it's better.

There are two occasions where I may not (but still sometimes do) twist before putting on the wirenut:

1: Very short wires in box when replacing old devices

2: Temporary splices for livening up a circuit for lights for the plasterers and painters where I may be terminating the wire on a device later.
 

Twoskinsoneman

Senior Member
Location
West Virginia, USA NEC: 2020
Occupation
Facility Senior Electrician
I feel that the wirenut should just be a protective covering

It is my feeling that the NEC is counting on the nut to make the connection.

look at the verbage in 110.14(B) "...joined with splicing device..."

Just twisting wires does not secure them mechanically or electrically... Otherwise the ol twist and solder would still be okay.
 
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