to twist or not to twist that seems to be the question [Music]
all right so there is this debate you're gonna find in little forums and little social media
environments where people are like why do you pre-twish it's a waste of time they're like why
don't you pre-twist it's a solid joint like why is there even any argument about that and I've
been in and out of this conversation for years and people always ask me do you twist do you pre-twist
uh before you put a wire nut on or do you just take the two conductors put them together and put
the wire nut on so where this comes from wire nuts used to not be constructed internally the same
way that they are now so they're actually listed most of them are listed so that when they twist
they actually twist the wires together so a lot of times I've gone out to plenty of service calls in
the past where I've had like a couple of recessed cans not working in a room or I've had just little
little tiny things that would go wrong that would cut power to like the remaining portion of a
circuit the problem with the materials is a lot of them weren't making a good enough connection over
a long period of time and so it you know as things heat up and cool metal expands and so some things
can lose their strength lose their Connection in a receptacle if you're plugging in and unplugging
constantly you're just shaking you know every time you use it you're just like moving things a little
bit so the conductors can end up moving free and so a lot of times you'll have one receptacle that
you know each receptacle is Daisy Chained and if the incoming power becomes loose or the outgoing
you know conductor to the next one becomes loose it won't make the connection to continue on to
the rest of the circuit so there's enough things like that that I have been in through my career
that I'm just like nah dude solid joints on everything like I don't want anything being
dependent on a device so if the device fails the rest of the circuit also fails this is why most of
the time you'll see people I do it every time in in commercial you have to put you know all
of your incoming conductors into a joint and then run a pigtail to the device that way if
the device fails itself and you have to replace the device or whatever the rest of the circuit
is still intact and so that whole like floor of people working on computers doesn't just lose
power because this one receptacle went bad right so that doesn't necessarily mean twist or pre
pre-twist either way I am of the opinion my way of doing things is that I like to pre-twist but I
do understand the argument that you don't always need to retwist so let's look at some examples
of solid conductors and Stranded conductors and just show the twisting all right so we got this
situation right we got some solid conductors let's do a test here twisting not twisting I'm
going to just use my clients to strip I do that pretty often if I don't have set scriptures on me
which I don't currently have a set of strippers on me all right so two twists or not to twist
I always twist I like this because when I take a wire nut off you know have conductors all the
way in the back of the box and I take the wire nuts off these things don't come apart like this
is a solid joint there's not going anywhere and when the wire nuts on you're like moving things
around this isn't going to come loose at all I can't tell you how many situations I've gone to
in recessed cans or whatever so things just don't work and you go and you sit and tug on these and
one of the conductors falls out that is why I choose to pre-twist now the argument for not
pre-twisting is that most wire nuts today are set up so that you don't have to twist
the way that the inside of this is shaped you can put these up to each other put them on
and it's still going to hold like that's not coming out of there so really the people that
are saying that you don't need to pre-twist they're right also because the the wire nuts
are designed to twist so let's take this off and see what this looks like boom it twisted now it's
not a good twist you know like I could pull these things apart so it's just my opinion that you
should actually pre-twist now what about stranded conductors don't pay attention to the fact that
I've just got this floppy pipe here this is in my studio so I'm just being stupid now when you have
stranded conductors when you put them together with a wire nut without twisting they actually do
a lot better job right I tend to cross them over each other and then if you're going to put this
thing on it's going to twist a lot more once you take this off look at that nice and twisted so for
stranded you don't really have to worry about it so much like that's still not going to come apart
but for me I'm still going to be super extra about it just because I want to I always make sure when
I put my stranded conductors together that I twist them anyways it's a much more solid connection
again just a preference thing but I like to do that I know for sure those are not coming apart
no matter what that's a solid joint now where the people that say that the pre-twist is not
necessary they do have a point there's a lot of times where we use listed pressure connectors so
this is just something that you would stab in so a lot of times in ballasts we'll have something
like this where the conductor just slides into place the other side slides into place
and then boom like this is still solid these are not going to come out of there it's just
a small thin piece of metal that's holding it on but if this is good enough and we use these all
the time these are not Twisted together right they're just touching each other so when we
connect this everything's connected when we take it out it breaks the circuit so in this case like
we're not twisting a joint together so it just goes to show it's just a preference thing if you
like to pre-twist go ahead and pre-twist if you don't like to pre-twist don't pre-twist either
way it's just a preference but you know you do need to make a good connection so you don't want
anything to be loose on any connection that you make so what is the national electrical
code say about this [Music] code doesn't actually say much doesn't say that you have to do anything
a certain way because they leave that up to the manufacturer listing and you're always supposed
to install things according to manufacturer's listings so if we look in 110 it's kind of the
general Provisions for how to deal with conductors and equipment we look in 110.14 B under splices
it says conductors shall be spliced or joined with splicing devices identify for the use or by
brazing welding or soldering with a fusible metal or alloy all splices and joints and the free ends
of conductor shall be covered with an insulation equivalent to that of the conductors or with an
identified insulating device so that's really all it gives you for splicing and when you're
putting a wire connector on you are essentially even though you're putting you're like twisting
something you're splicing those things together you're making a connection so it's just saying
that we need to use whatever according to its listing if you have wire connectors that say that
you need to twist them together you need to twist them together if they say that you need to stack
them together you need to stack them together but that's really all it gives you so this is
one of those silly things like should you be wearing tool belts or should you be carrying
a bag where there's not actually a right or wrong answer it's just largely preferential
I can say that I've never had a situation where I've had people pre-twist joints where I've had
to go back and fix anything you know just solid one thing a lot of people don't like though is
they don't like having to untwist a whole bunch of conductors and then you got these gnarled up
curly things and you got to sit and straighten every one of them out so it can be a pain in
the butt for people that have to work on Twisted joints after the fact completely understand that
but either way if you're putting two conductors together they're still twisting together they're
just not twisting together as well so that's just more of a cop-out like laziness problem to deal
with don't ever just have two straight conductors and barely put a wire nut on so that when you pull
it off they pop off at you you need some kind of a Twist on them because that's a solid joint
um the other thing I've run into is people put like four or five conductors together
and instead of you know stripping out a little bit more and making sure that they're all put
together and that they lay down really nicely as one solid joint they just stick a wire nut
on that and push it in the back of the box and you take the wire knot off everything
goes on your face and that sucks that's not good work that's not quality craftsmanship so here's
what I have to say about it always do work to the best of your ability always try to impress
yourself every single day everything that you touch be a Craftsman take this stuff seriously
this can really hurt or kill people so you need to take what you do with deadly seriousness and
I think in my opinion and how I teach my people I being the one taking the liability owning the
company I want all my people pre-twisting I just do I think it's a better method that's my opinion
whatever it's worth do whatever you're gonna do but if you walk away from something and be like
that's kind of ass but then you just walk away anyways that's a whole different thing
that's just laziness and you need to get over that if you can walk away from everything and
be like that's solid like that looks great it functions great I know that there's not
going to be any service calls because of this I'm great covering that up I think that's the
way to do it and in my book pre-twists that's the way that I feel the most safe and the most
um solid about all of my installs and I've just had way fewer service calls doing things that way
so anyways let me know your opinions I can tell you're already in the comments I can tell already
get those fingers ready make sure you do some exercises like get the fancy Fingers going
you know I need you to type like a lot of hate under this please please give me your opinions
I need I need your approval so badly I love you crazy people I'll see you in the next one