Hello everyone:
I stumbled on this board after doing an internet search on my topic. I am not an electrician - but I consider myself a pretty handy DIY'er who takes his time to educate himself before diving in to a project. I hope it is OK to post my question here.
I need to replace my 15 year old, hard wired smoke detectors. I have one in the basement and another (interconnected) on the second floor. Inside each box, there were four 14 gauge white wires and four black wires wire - each color wire nut connected together. Three of each color originated from romex style wiring, and the fourth black and fourth white was used as a pigtail to back-stab into the old smoke detector. There is also a single red wire of course for the interconnect between the two smoke detectors. The new detectors come with a wiring harness using either 16 or 18 gauge (can't quite read the number) white, black and red stranded and pre-tinned wires.
I have read the posts about pre-twist vs. not pretwisting and have a related question..
What is the best way to connect the wiring harness to the bundle of white and black solid 14 gauge wires? First of all, I assume I should eliminate the black and white pigtails such that the stranded wires of the harness connect direct to the three black and three white wires. However, since the three black and three white wires are already twisted, do I need to cut off the twisted segments, lay out the white and black bundles straight, along with the stranded wire (with the stranded wire leading the bundles a bit), pretwist, and then put on the appropriate wire nut? Or, should I simply lay the stranded wire a bit ahead of the already twisted bundles, and twist on the appropriate wire nut?
By the way, whoever installed these detectors - along with every other light figure, used drywall screws in the plastic Carlon boxes. They even used them for the exterior coach lights where they show on the exterior. Aren't machine screws supposed to be used - just like you find provided with a new receptacle?? I tapped the plastic in the smoke detector box for a 8-32 machine screw.
Any help greatly appreciated.
I stumbled on this board after doing an internet search on my topic. I am not an electrician - but I consider myself a pretty handy DIY'er who takes his time to educate himself before diving in to a project. I hope it is OK to post my question here.
I need to replace my 15 year old, hard wired smoke detectors. I have one in the basement and another (interconnected) on the second floor. Inside each box, there were four 14 gauge white wires and four black wires wire - each color wire nut connected together. Three of each color originated from romex style wiring, and the fourth black and fourth white was used as a pigtail to back-stab into the old smoke detector. There is also a single red wire of course for the interconnect between the two smoke detectors. The new detectors come with a wiring harness using either 16 or 18 gauge (can't quite read the number) white, black and red stranded and pre-tinned wires.
I have read the posts about pre-twist vs. not pretwisting and have a related question..
What is the best way to connect the wiring harness to the bundle of white and black solid 14 gauge wires? First of all, I assume I should eliminate the black and white pigtails such that the stranded wires of the harness connect direct to the three black and three white wires. However, since the three black and three white wires are already twisted, do I need to cut off the twisted segments, lay out the white and black bundles straight, along with the stranded wire (with the stranded wire leading the bundles a bit), pretwist, and then put on the appropriate wire nut? Or, should I simply lay the stranded wire a bit ahead of the already twisted bundles, and twist on the appropriate wire nut?
By the way, whoever installed these detectors - along with every other light figure, used drywall screws in the plastic Carlon boxes. They even used them for the exterior coach lights where they show on the exterior. Aren't machine screws supposed to be used - just like you find provided with a new receptacle?? I tapped the plastic in the smoke detector box for a 8-32 machine screw.
Any help greatly appreciated.
