7 Horrible Electrical Habits

Comments · 425

• BA

  @BackyardMaine · 5 months ago · pinned

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• ST

  @steveurbach3093 · 5 months ago

  On your &apos;rock and roll&apos; segment. PAY ATTENTION to the strippers size markings. One side may be for Stranded and the other for Solid. They are not the same hole.

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• DJ

  @djp_video · 5 months ago

  The electrician that wired my home (built in 2015) for some reason did something really weird. One circuit first goes to a GFCI outlet in the garage, then comes back to the utility room (coming off the Load side), where the main load center is located, and feeds a receptacle for the (tankless) water heater and water softener. It then heads to the back yard to feed the receptacle by the back door, and then back to the front again to feed the receptacle by the front door. Not only is it a lot of needless criss-crossing of the house, it also means I get cold showers when rain falls on an extension cord in the back yard that feeds a heated pet bowl and trips the GFCI. It took me a while to figure out how it was wired the first time it happened. <br><br>One day I&apos;ll get around to fixing it, moving the exterior receptacles to their own circuits, each with its own GFCI. <br><br>The sad thing is that he actually used more wire doing it this way than he would if he had done it right, by at least double. And there&apos;s plenty of space in the load center for more circuits. Makes me scratch my head...

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• RI

  @rickmelcher1351 · 5 months ago

  The first one you mentioned is so important, when I was teaching my students in the electrical course, I would show them how many times a nicked wire could be bent back and forth before breaking versus a non nicked wire - I think I got through to them!!!!

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• MA

  @mattb9664 · 5 months ago (edited)

  I had a 2008 New Construction in NJ - every single outlet and light switch had the &apos;backstab&apos; connector used. &nbsp;We were still on incandescent bulbs back then, and I remember the lights being just a tad duller than they should have been. I upgraded the switches to blade-style- and I made sure to use the regular j-hook method to secure the wires. &nbsp;When I turned the lights on, I suddenly had full unrestricted current being made available to the incandescent bulbs, so they were full brightness. &nbsp;Using those backstabs is the same as using smaller sized plumbing with PEX B fittings everywhere, which chokes the water down even more. &nbsp;<br>Glad we got rid of that house and now have a bullet proof 1975 home.

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• TH

  @thezombie7839 · 5 months ago

  I already like this channel a lot, but you just earned major bonus points if those are your CDs.

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• PA

  @paaao · 5 months ago

  The problem I see most with pre-twisting is guys are grabbing stripped copper conductors with side cutters, or maybe just the ends of their strippers, or even worse, those silly screw gun attachments. They end up pre-twisting &quot;so well&quot; that they create dozens of knicks and weak spots in the conductor, which they inevitability hide under a wire nut that is designed to bite into the conductor and twist it along with the others side by side. I&apos;ve seen many installations where these pre-twisted conductors broke off in the wire nut, and fused/arced back together as best they could. Both heating up the wire nut to dangerous levels, and some just burning/vaporizing underneath the nut leaving a single conductor with a very poor connection that was now under load constantly until it gave out, and slipped away from the joint completely. <br><br>I personally just line all the conductors up evenly, and twist the wire nut over until the insulated portion of the wires twists together. Never once had an issue with it, and it&apos;s much easier to separate them when troubleshooting or servicing something later. Undoing the wire nut will not break the joint, until you grab the bare conductors with side cutters or insulated pliers and reverse twist so that the insulated portion backs off and comes undone enough to break the joint.

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• EZ

  @Ezees23 · 5 months ago (edited)

  I had a family friend that called me about their outdoor outlets not working as they were trying to use a corded trimmer and leaf blower. I came over and searched and searched for a broken wire or electrical fault somewhere between the panel and branched circuits - even looking in the attic and crawl space. I&apos;d already spent over an hour on a frustrating &quot;friendly call&quot; (ie, meaning a free &quot;favor&quot;). It turned out to simply be tripped GFCI receptacle in the bathroom (out of their 2-1/2 bathrooms) - one that fed the whole outdoor receptacle circuit that had tripped when the wife tried to use her hair dryer. All of that could have been avoided if any one of the original electricians or helpers had taken the time to simply use one of the several &quot;GFCI Protected&quot; stickers that came inside the box of nearly every GFCI receptacle made to indicate that the downstream receptacles were GFCI protected, FFS.....

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• WE

  @WE500CD · 5 months ago

  Corrected my multi branch circuits thanks to this channel. &nbsp;Installed the proper two pole 20 amp breakers.

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• PR

  @PrinceofPeanuts · 5 months ago

  it wouldnt be a backyard maine vid without talking about backstabbing, which is what your local building dept does to your back!

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• AK

  @AKADonBrewer · 4 months ago

  Hey John . Thank you for your video sir. I mentioned in an earlier video about the power saving devices and have someone used aI to create a video claiming to be you. &nbsp;As i mentioned in the other video i was trained and some of the basics of electricity and house wiring industrial wiring Etc. I&apos;m not a certified electrician. At the beginning of this video i was reminded of a situation where my main breaker and my home&apos;s breaker box was causing other Breakers to trip. My brother has been a certified electrician for at least 30 years. Unfortunately he&apos;s battling cancer right now but you got to love the guy. He told me that if I needed advice over the phone concerning electricity or mechanical issues with my truck that he would be glad to give me guidance. He comes from the old school. He co-owned a mechanics shop in the 70s and as always fixed things<br> I called him about this intermittent loss of power and a certain section of my home and he advised me to double check every breaker , every connection and to replace the breaker associated with the area that was losing power intermittently. That did not show me any signs of a bad breaker although I replaced it anyway. Then I decided to cut the main from the outside and to remove the breakers on the inside electrical panel. What I found was that the main breaker inside down had been arcing but was not visible until I pull the main &nbsp;breaker and saw clear evidence of arcing behind the main breaker. &nbsp;That&apos;s why I watch your show.<br><br>Anyways the mobile home is pretty old and I&apos;m thinking about replacing the entire load Center or electrical panel inside with all new Breakers and I think Square D is probably top of the line. I did clean up the box a bit. It was a Rat&apos;s Nest when I moved in a few years ago . Anyway thank you for your information and sharing your knowledge. I tried to find what I need on the internet rather than bothering &nbsp;my brother and that&apos;s how I found you. Thanks again and God bless

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• MA

  @matthewsanders8421 · 3 months ago

  Helpful. I was guilty of rocking and rolling. I’ll try to stop that.

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