P&S PlugTail receptacles

[mdshunk]

I did check on them once upon a time. They were around 5 bucks each, which wasn't enough to interest me. I see now that some light fixtures are coming with a plug-tail type of arrangement. The last one's I put in of the 'Profile' brand from Lowe's had this type of quick-connect.

 

[gra electric]

My installation cost to install devices is around $2.84 which includes labor and cost of device. If I use the $5.00 that marc quoted, I would need to double my production to recoup the price difference on material. I already average about 300 devices in 8 hours. I have already shaved my labor rates down to the bare bones. At rough I make up all my boxes, at trim out I walk around with a mini-impact gun and devices. At 300 devices in 8 hrs it equates to a per/unit labor rate of .027 each. I just don't think that this could speed me up enough to justify the hassle of ordering, keeping track of more parts on the job, and spending the extra money. But of course I am open to everything, and I might give these a try and track my efforts and see if they are what they are cracked up to be.

Gerry

 

[emahler]

I did check on them once upon a time. They were around 5 bucks each, which wasn't enough to interest me. I see now that some light fixtures are coming with a plug-tail type of arrangement. The last one's I put in of the 'Profile' brand from Lowe's had this type of quick-connect.

at $5/device, i'm interested...it's costs me more than that to have someone install pigtails and standard devices...

 

[480sparky]

at $5/device, i'm interested...it's costs me more than that to have someone install pigtails and standard devices...

Keep in mind the pigtails that are used are generally installed during rough. I think they come with a small plastic bag to cover the end so drywall mud and paint don't clog them up. So you probably have the same labor cost to install the factory pigtail, maybe more if you have to install and then remove the cover.

I'm also curious about how well those pigtails survive between rough and trim. Are they easy to get far enough back into the box to get away from the drywallers' 16-billion-mile-long router bits? If not, I would suspect they may not have a good survival rate and many may need replacing during trim.... not a cheap option IMPO.

Another thing to consider is that you must carry those pigtails around during make-up, just another pocket full of stuff to lug around. Can you solder & tape them? Are they solid or stranded?

 

[JohnME]

The ones I have used are stranded, and they are great. I like them because when I am finishing a job I can stick a first year apprentice on devices and KNOW they wont be able to screw it up and it should be done in a quick fashion, or I get angry

 

[jdsmith]

The pigtails are available in solid or stranded, each prestripped on the ends. I used plugtails on a small project at the university over the summer due to scheduling on an extremely tight timeline. I only installed 25 or so so I can't provide data on labor savings. The way they were useful to me was I was able to move that chunk of labor from trimout to rough. Since rush jobs only get worse closer to the end, it was worth it in this case.

Here's what I paid for the parts:
6" plugtail, solid or stranded, $1.14 each
Extra heavy duty 20A duplex, $10.96 each
Decorator duplex, 15A, $6.62 each
GFCI duplex, 20A, "spec grade" $15.87 each

For comparison, commercial spec grade side wire recep, #CS20, $2.10 each

I should mention that the bill was just paid and not many questions asked as long as we made the deadline:grin:.

 

[mdshunk]

I should mention that the bill was just paid and not many questions asked as long as we made the deadline:grin:.

That's the sort of job you need when you're interested in experimenting with new methods, as long as you're sure you'll hit the deadline anyhow.

 

[chris500]

other than mentioning them, there was nothing remotely useful in that thread...you owe me $15 for the time I took to read it hoping that I would get a helpful answer

Thanks for saving me 15 minutes, I was just about to start reading it.

Check's in the mail :grin:

 

[john_axelson]

Used them before

Used them before

We used these on a project a few years ago. You do install the plugtail at the time of rough-in.

No need for stripping wires, etc at final devicing. Less mess on the floor,etc. You simply remove the plastic bag and plug in the plug tail to the device, screw the device into the box, and install the plate. All of the commercial jobs I have been involved with for the past three years has a crunch time during the final devicing stage. We are battling with flooring contractors, ceiling guys padding out, painters touching up, etc. Cuts down the amount of time needed on-site during this stage of the project.

It did save us time for each device and I believe we paid around $4.75 a device, but also purchased over a 1000 of the devices. We easily saved a couple of thousand dollars in labor savings. Other posters are correct, we did have some first and second year apprentices do the majority of the devicing on a 750,000 square foot facility.

 

[mdsparky97]

We've used them once, I found that you can trim out twice as fast as normal. A little more effort at rough installing the pigtails and of course the additional expence involved.