My first encounter with push-in connectors, ever, was when a general contractor, whom I didn’t admire too much, used them to install a Halo recessed light. I had just started working for him, and was soon to stop working for him, and I couldn’t believe he wanted me to install a recessed can made by Halo. Halo to me is the Home Depot Brand, if it goes in successfully, which is a bit of a challenge, it won’t last for as long as it should. I always use Juno, a brand developed in the late seventies for electricians by electricians, so we could install something and die of old age before we get called back to fix it.
So there he was pushing the wires into the connectors and I was thinking of ways to not work for him again. Connectors to me seemed like another cheap quick fix that turns everyone on but doesn’t have any improvement over a real wire nut.
Wire nuts have been the standard since electricians stopped soldering wires together. They were a great invention. I mean, you could do something in half the time and your splice would last twice as long. Personally, I’ve always believed in wire nuts because of the twist. A sub standard electrician will twist a wire nut until he feels some tension and then figure the wires are spliced. A real electrician will feel that tension and keep twisting. He will twist until all the wires are twisted together, until the wire nut is practically unnecessary, it is just a cap on top of two or more wires that are so entangled that it would require a bit of strength to pull them apart, even if the wire nut is off.
Wiring up boxes, I took pride in having muscles in my hands that could twist five number twelve wires together into a tight unit. I loved my wire nuts and they loved to do their job right.
Enter Skip.
Skip is the legendary electrician I began working for. Legendary, because he has his own set of rules, so sophisticated and well though-out, he could write his own code book, that would make any job twice as safe. The NEC is known as the “bare minimum standard”. Skip would write the code that was “the standard”. He really is a good electrician, and it is a shame that he isn’t as successful as he could be. He has taught many an apprentice that has gone on to do bigger more sophisticate projects than he, and make more money. Alas, he works for a company that pays him a mere prevailing wage, without a good retirement plan. Legend has it he spends some weekends in his room with the blinds closed, without any clothes, writing Wikipedia articles about electrical theory.
My first day working for Skip, he handed me two jars of push in connectors and two bags of wire nuts and told me I could use whichever I felt most comfortable with, and that he felt most comfortable with the push-ins. In that moment, my attitude towards push-ins changed in an instant. I wasn’t willing to use them, for sure. Wiring up a house means you are putting other people’s lives in your hands, perhaps MANY GENERATIONS of lives in your hands, we don’t make changes on the fly, but my curiosity was suddenly stimulated, I was at that moment determined to try push-in connectors, if only with scrap wire on the side. I figured if Skip Logan endorsed them, they must be worth considering.
I did try them, over, and over again, on the side. A good electrician has to see things with his own eyes, he has to feel, touch and smell things, before his confidence in something can start to grow. I tried them, until the inevitable happened: I thought “God, I’m wasting money with practicing these connectors on something that is UL listed for all this anyways”. So instead of wasting money, I started making up boxes with push in connectors. My whole career changed.
Wow, that is a lead up to endorsing push in connectors if I ever saw one, but they are great. The best part is that they do not mess up the wires. “The twist” keeps wires together, but so does a push in connector, and if you need to alter the twist in any way, it is a pain in the ass. With push ins, you can modify your box on the fly, just pull out and change it up. Your wires will stay straight and pristine. After using push-ins for over six months now, I am happy to say that they make more space in boxes, they are faster, easier to use, and they are reliable. I really doubt that many electricians will be using wire nuts in 30 years.
The secret to using push in connectors is to apply your electrician’s paranoia to your application of the push-ins. They com with a clear casing so you can see if they are pushed in all the way. You have to make double, triple, quadruple sure that they are connected right. When they are connected right, they are as good as anything, except with all the added, easy-to-miss features, they are even better.
I should write another article about all the processes necessary to make sure that a push-in is used safely, but to be sure, if it is used safely, it is the Cadillac of connectors.
So there he was pushing the wires into the connectors and I was thinking of ways to not work for him again. Connectors to me seemed like another cheap quick fix that turns everyone on but doesn’t have any improvement over a real wire nut.
Wire nuts have been the standard since electricians stopped soldering wires together. They were a great invention. I mean, you could do something in half the time and your splice would last twice as long. Personally, I’ve always believed in wire nuts because of the twist. A sub standard electrician will twist a wire nut until he feels some tension and then figure the wires are spliced. A real electrician will feel that tension and keep twisting. He will twist until all the wires are twisted together, until the wire nut is practically unnecessary, it is just a cap on top of two or more wires that are so entangled that it would require a bit of strength to pull them apart, even if the wire nut is off.
Wiring up boxes, I took pride in having muscles in my hands that could twist five number twelve wires together into a tight unit. I loved my wire nuts and they loved to do their job right.
Enter Skip.
Skip is the legendary electrician I began working for. Legendary, because he has his own set of rules, so sophisticated and well though-out, he could write his own code book, that would make any job twice as safe. The NEC is known as the “bare minimum standard”. Skip would write the code that was “the standard”. He really is a good electrician, and it is a shame that he isn’t as successful as he could be. He has taught many an apprentice that has gone on to do bigger more sophisticate projects than he, and make more money. Alas, he works for a company that pays him a mere prevailing wage, without a good retirement plan. Legend has it he spends some weekends in his room with the blinds closed, without any clothes, writing Wikipedia articles about electrical theory.
My first day working for Skip, he handed me two jars of push in connectors and two bags of wire nuts and told me I could use whichever I felt most comfortable with, and that he felt most comfortable with the push-ins. In that moment, my attitude towards push-ins changed in an instant. I wasn’t willing to use them, for sure. Wiring up a house means you are putting other people’s lives in your hands, perhaps MANY GENERATIONS of lives in your hands, we don’t make changes on the fly, but my curiosity was suddenly stimulated, I was at that moment determined to try push-in connectors, if only with scrap wire on the side. I figured if Skip Logan endorsed them, they must be worth considering.
I did try them, over, and over again, on the side. A good electrician has to see things with his own eyes, he has to feel, touch and smell things, before his confidence in something can start to grow. I tried them, until the inevitable happened: I thought “God, I’m wasting money with practicing these connectors on something that is UL listed for all this anyways”. So instead of wasting money, I started making up boxes with push in connectors. My whole career changed.
Wow, that is a lead up to endorsing push in connectors if I ever saw one, but they are great. The best part is that they do not mess up the wires. “The twist” keeps wires together, but so does a push in connector, and if you need to alter the twist in any way, it is a pain in the ass. With push ins, you can modify your box on the fly, just pull out and change it up. Your wires will stay straight and pristine. After using push-ins for over six months now, I am happy to say that they make more space in boxes, they are faster, easier to use, and they are reliable. I really doubt that many electricians will be using wire nuts in 30 years.
The secret to using push in connectors is to apply your electrician’s paranoia to your application of the push-ins. They com with a clear casing so you can see if they are pushed in all the way. You have to make double, triple, quadruple sure that they are connected right. When they are connected right, they are as good as anything, except with all the added, easy-to-miss features, they are even better.
I should write another article about all the processes necessary to make sure that a push-in is used safely, but to be sure, if it is used safely, it is the Cadillac of connectors.
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