What's going on my friends this is Dustin Stelzer with Electrician U and today we're going to talk about a whole bunch of different
materials that you should know if you're getting into the residential electrical game
Alright number 1 on our list is romex. A lot of people call this Romex, Romex is really a brand
It's actually called nonmetallic sheathed cable. This specifically is NM type-B
There's several different types of nonmetallic sheathed cable, but this is the stuff that you run in the wall
So between plugs and switches and pretty much everything in a house, you're gonna use romex
Number 2 staples
Staples are what we use to secure that type NM-B cable to walls
There's several different types of staples. There's several different depths some of them have ratings so that you can put one of these
pieces of romex
under one staple
Some of them are rated for two. There's a whole debate on whether or not you should be stacking multiple
conductors or multiple pieces of romex under a staple. We'll get into that conversation at a later date
But just know staples are your method of securing said cable.
Number 3 is the nail on box. Nail on boxes are
what they say they are. It's a box with nails that come on it
You hammer these into a wood stud and that's what holds
the box in place and then you run wire into it and you're gonna have a receptacle or a switch
or something in this box. They come in a bunch of sizes because you may have one device. This is a one-gang
This is a two-gang nail-on box. So you could have two switches, two plugs, whatever
three-gang nail-on box and a four-gang nail-on box. There's many different types and styles some come with screws some come with
brackets some come with a little a little
extra piece of plastic with holes in it so you can screw it in but essentially they're all doing the same purpose
They're all being nailed on to a stud
Next is the pop pin box or the cut-in box, depending on where you're at in the country what people call it
This is a single gang
Same thing as the nail on it's just that these get cut into sheetrock
So you would typically use these in a job like a remodel or something or if you're adding something to an existing house that already
has all the sheetrock up and you need to put something
Receptacle or a switch somewhere
So this is the stuff that you would use when there's already sheetrock up
The other stuff is what you would use if it's just wood and it's a brand new building
So these come in single-gang, I don't have a two-gang...you don't know how much that actually irritates me
But I do have a three-gang and I do have a four-gang. So again the same kind of thing
You're just putting several different devices in these and have different sizes depending on how many different devices you're putting in them
Next is the round nail on box. So these are for lights
Usually you're gonna have these in a ceiling somewhere run wire into it. And then your light fixture is going to attach to this
They're always round. There's several different styles of these again. This is a four inch round nail on box
Next up is the round pop in box or cut in box
this is if there's already sheetrock up and you're adding a light somewhere cut the sheetrock out and
Stick this up in the hole and secure it down and it's going to hold itself against the sheetrock
This is a three inch round
This is a four inch round again multiple different styles of each, but you need to know the round pop in box
Number seven is the pancake. So this is a box that you would use. It's only the depth of sheetrock
So if you have something like a piece of wood a stud or something and you have to have a light right there
It can't be moved over into the open space, you would use a pancake and you run your conductors into this
Very few conductors. These aren't rated to have a whole bunch of wires in them
So you have to know a little bit about box fill, but essentially you just need to know this is called a pancake
Number eight is the fan-cake, so
Fan cake is basically the same thing as a pancake. It's just that it's fan-rated. So
You can't hang a fan from this pancake. You have to have a fancake instead
Or a fan rated pancake. (We just call them fan cakes.) Reason is, is a pancake has these tiny little
ears on them and with enough weight you can bend those ears
So for a fan, they typically weigh a whole lot more than a light fixture
You need something that has a hard side that's threaded and reinforced that can hold a fan. So
You need to know fan-cake
Next up is the fan brace. So just like a fan cake is meant to hold a fan, a fan braces is as well
the only difference between the fan cake and the fan brace is if
You're mounting to wood, then you would use something like this the fan cake if you're mounting in between a chase
You know in between two trusses then you're going to use something like this a super heavy-duty
Usually holds between 50 and 70 pounds depending on which rating you're using (CSA or UL's rating)
But just know, fan braces are for fans. We also use these a lot for really heavy chandeliers
Or really heavy lighting that we put up if we think that a regular box, you know
something like this or or
A nail on box is not stout enough and we think it's gonna rip hunter the ceiling if we use one of these
Then we'll use something a lot more heavy-duty like this fan brace for it. Next up is the bar hanger
So a bar hanger is really essentially one of these nail on boxes just on a hanger
So if you're not nailing it up to a stud or a truss
You're gonna put it in between two of them just like you would do with the fan brace
and then this whole thing slides you're gonna use these things like crazy
Sometimes you'll use them in walls. So they'll face out like this and a light fixture will hang off
Sometimes you put them up in the ceiling but you're gonna do light
weight stuff with one of these you're not putting, you know a 300-pound fixture hanging from it. It's plastic
So it's got plastic holes. It's you put threaded screws into it
And if it's heavy enough
Something can rip out of this
so you would still need to use like a fan brace or a fan cake or something heavy-duty if you're gonna do like a
Fan or like a 100 pound chandelier. Next up is the duplex receptacle. It's called a duplex receptacle because there's two
receptacles you can plug two different things into this. So you're gonna install so many of these
that you're not ever even gonna be able to count the amount of duplex receptacles
you're going to put in but just know this is a duplex receptacle. This is not a plug
This is a receptacle. Although you're gonna hear so many people just call this a plug
Next is the single receptacle. So just like a duplex receptacle it receives
a plug or a cord that goes in to it, but there's only one
so we usually use these for dedicated circuits if we have a refrigerator a
dishwasher or disposal or something and we don't want something else getting plugged in so that there's two loads being drawn in the same circuit
We just put this in so you can only plug one thing into it
So this is a single receptacle. Next we have the GFI receptacle. This is a ground fault circuit interrupter
This is something that you're going to use in wet locations like outdoors or in you know garages
Utility rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, anywhere where you could potentially have water on the floor and people could stand in that water and get electrocuted
badly, so you're going to use GFI receptacles quite a bit
And another thing a lot of people call them GFI's they're actually GFCIs
There are some people out there that are very picky about you calling it a GFI versus you calling it a GFCI
a GFI is a ground fault interrupter a
GFCI is a ground fault circuit interrupter
Either way you go
just know when you're going in that this is to clear ground faults and ground faults are something that we'll get into in a later
video but these receptacles GFCI receptacles are used in wet locations. Next up is a single pole switch
So a single pole switch you're gonna install so many of these again
you can even imagine how many of these you're going to be working on
single pole switch is
essentially just an on-and-off. That's all there is. It's either connecting or disconnecting a wire
so you use these a turn light switches on sometimes you use them as
disconnects so that you can disconnect power to like a gas furnace or something like that
but you'll use the crap out of these just remember single pole switch means turning on and turning off
Next in that same vein is the three-way switch a three-way switch surprisingly does not turn on three different things
This was a hard thing for me as an apprentice to understand why, it doesn't matter why I mean, you know how it works
but it's like
You think intuitively it should be called a two-way switch because you can switch from two different ways
But that's not what it's it's for. So they call it a three-way switch. You can see that the
terminals on the back are different. This single pole receptacle only has two screws
You have your incoming hot and then you have the the conductor that goes out to the light with a threeway
you actually have three screws
So you have a common screw which is where your incoming
hot goes or you're outgoing out to a light and then you have two travelers that get run between these two devices
we'll go into this later
You don't need to know that you just need to know a three-way switch is a switch that's used
when you're trying to switch the same lights from two different locations, so it's not just an on and off. It's a
Send current one-way and send current in a different way, depending on which position you switch this in
Now another thing to bring up real quick before I move on you see the difference between these switches, right?
This is what we call a toggle switch
So you there's actually a lever a toggle that you flip this is called a decor or decora switch
You have it's basically a paddle switch of people calling that as well
But they're just two different styles of switch. That's it. It's just a visual aesthetic thing some people love this style
They usually match these plugs
They all have the same plates that go around them because they're identical, same size
So a lot of people like the style in their homes
where a lot of other people like the standard style where, you know,
there's the round face on receptacles and the toggling for the switches
Next up is the circuit breaker
so circuit breakers are in every building that you're gonna mess with so just
understanding that a circuit breaker is the starting point of a branch circuit and a branch circuit is what goes out to
receptacles and lighting and everything that comes out of the panel and
feeds some kind of load. But the way that you turn the circuit off is by turning the breaker on or off
So this is just a standard single pole breaker
So the next thing that you're gonna want to know is the arc-fault breaker. In dealing with homes
we have these things called arc fault breakers. They have this fancy little
white pigtail that comes off of them. There's a whole bunch of different styles
There's different, you know "combination arc-fault" that will do series and parallel arc detection or there's just regular arc-fault
but knowing arc-faults is a really important thing because there's very specific rooms and locations and loads that have to have arc-fault protection
this is a breaker, but it does more than just
test how much current is going through a circuit. So it trips if there's a dangerous situation
It also detects if there's any arcing happening somewhere in the circuit
so just knowing that arc-faults and circuit breakers are essentially the same thing
there's just a difference in why and how they work and what locations are what but we'll do more on that later
Next is what we call out in the field, carflex. Some people just call this flex
There's a whole different series of names that you can understand because there's three different types of conduits
That kind of look very similar to this
But this is nonmetallic
liquid tight
flexible conduit
Meaning it's nonmetallic. So you can flex it. It's liquid type meaning no water is gonna penetrate it and get into it
and it's a type of conduit so you would run conductors on the inside of this
mainly we use these
outside at
Air conditioners when you're coming from inside the house where your wires emerge out of the house and there's an air conditioner on the ground
You're going to use this to hook up conductors so that the conductors don't get wet. You can't just run them in free air
You actually have to have them in some kind of conduit
That's not the only place you would use these there's a lot of reasons why you would use carflex
But just know what carflex is and that it's used outdoors
to hook things up around the house
Alright, so since we just talked about carflex, the next thing we should talk about is carflex connectors.
So there's two different styles of connectors (actually there's way more than two different styles) but there's two different
types to concern yourselves with this is what we call a car flex 90
because it's a 90 degree connector. So
you would essentially hook this up like this
if the box that you're hooking up to is at 90 degrees. If you don't have enough room to run straight into that thing
you know like this would be sticking out. This is a
straight carflex connector and this is a car flex 90
So just know that there's two different
kinds depending on what you have room for and where you're coming into an enclosure or a box
next up is the AC disconnect. An AC disconnect is
Generally used for hooking up to air conditioning units
There has to be a means of disconnection or what we call a disconnecting means - a way for a technician that you know
maybe an AC guy has to go out and fix an air conditioning unit
he needs to be able to pull power and disconnect that unit right there at the unit so he can work on it and then
reconnect power when he leaves
Same thing for furnaces a lot of electric furnaces use AC disconnects where they're not really called AC disconnects
We just call them that if you're at Home Depot, you might see some boxes
Usually it's a 60 amp disconnect and it just says AC disconnect on it, but they're used for a lot of different things
sometimes they're used for water heaters, electric water heaters, but just know what a disconnect is and that they're used to
For a technician to be able to disconnect power locally at an appliance and work on it and then reconnect power
that way they don't have to run all the way around the house try to turn a breaker on or turn a breaker off and
Then go all the way back and start working on something and then Mr. or Mrs. Homeowner
goes and flips that breaker for some stupid reason and shocks them while they're working on it. Next up is the Bell box
So a Bell box is a weatherproof enclosure that you can put a receptacle or any kind of device a switch inside
Of so, you would run
usually on the outside of a house if there's brick or something or a hole and then you put a connector in here and
You would screw this thing
Into the wall, so it sits outside all the time
It can get rained on and it's specifically meant for wet locations
So the Bell box is something you use outdoors all the time.
Alright and last on our list is the in-use cover. A lot of people call these bubble covers because the cover is all bubbly
Whatever you call it. It's actually called an in-use cover but the idea is say you got a bell box
or maybe you just have a regular box that you cut into a wood exterior of a house or something
this goes on this, there's a weatherproof seal all the way around so moisture and water doesn't get inside of it and
once your receptacle is installed inside, there's all these different inserts if you're using a plug
You're using a switch or if you're using maybe a GFI or a decor device
but you're gonna have a receptacle inside of here and
This allows you to have a cord. There's a there's a little knock out here that you can pull out
that way you can have an
extension cord or some kind of cord plugged into the device and this thing will close
while that is still plugged in it gives you a little bit of extra room because that that plug is gonna be long and
kind of cumbersome, so you need something with extra room, but the whole idea you just need to know what a weatherproof
bubble cover or an in-use cover is because you're going to use these again outside around houses
gardens, all over the place. So that's it. That's my list of I don't know, I lost count by now
That's probably more than 25, but let me know if you guys have any other questions
There's definitely way more to know so I'll probably do more of these
I'm gonna do some that are commercial as well. But I just wanted to give some of y'all apprentices some understanding
When you're first getting into residential of what these things are called and what they do and why you should know them
You