what's going on my friends i am dustin stelzer with electrician you
and today we're going to talk about torquing it sounds like i said twerking
so should we be torquing our terminations we hear electricians everywhere be like hey did you
torque your screws on that plug before you put it in did you torque the terminals at your panel
when you installed it no you don't hear that you don't ever hear electricians say that
you hear inspectors say that or you hear people in facebook argue about it but the amount of people
out there that are going to every screw and every terminal and getting their clicky little torquing
screwdrivers nobody's doing that there might be a couple people doing that but most people aren't
doing that but should we be that's what we're here to discuss so there's a bunch of tools out
there that people have made one of them is like a screwdriver essentially i don't have
one i should probably have one this is a marker but there's twerking screwdrivers so you can set
different values to them and as you screw them in you actually hear an audible click and that's how
you know that you've set that screw to a certain torque setting there's clicking torque wrenches so
you same kind of thing just a bigger torque wrench there are clicking the like button below there
there's twerking there are also clicking no then there are torque wrenches that click kind of like
you should click the like button sounds so [ __ ] bad i feel so [ __ ] cheesy saying that
then there are torque wrenches that click kind of like the sound it makes when you click the
like button it sounds funny in my head but it's really not funny then there's even digital torque
wrenches so there's people that are making battery powered torque wrenches so you can set values and
everything in the tool you just push a button and it actually does all of the work for you
so there's a lot of people making stuff for this but does it necessarily apply to
the electrical industry well let's break into the code and see what the code says
all right so do we have to twerk as electricians yes no kind of there's a couple of municipalities
in our area that require us to torque our terminations specifically at services and they
want us to take a marker or paint or something and actually mark between the screw part and the
actual terminal where they go in mark them to make sure that nothing has adjusted over time that's
just that's what they want so you always have to do what your ah your authority having jurisdiction
wants you to do that is also code but what else does it say about code so there's a whole new part
in code in 110 110.14d so this is what it reads under d terminal connection torque
it says tightening torque values for terminal connections shall be as indicated on equipment
or installation instructions provided by the manufacturer okay so that's telling you that there
should be torque values put on equipment or in the instructions of the equipment then it finishes by
saying an approved means shall be used to achieve the indicated torque value it doesn't say you have
to torque it just says the equipment has to have torque values on it informational note number one
examples of approved means of achieving the indicated torqued values include torque tools or
devices include these things that is not the only things they include torque tools or devices such
as shear bolts or breakaway style devices with visual indicators that demonstrate that the proper
torque has been applied informational note number two the equipment manufacturer can be contacted
not must be contacted means you if if there is no value you don't have to go call them but they can
be contacted kind of funny that they even bother putting that in there the equipment manufacturer
can be contacted if numeric torque values are not indicated on the equipment or if the installation
instructions are not available informative annex i of ul standard 486 a through 486 b standard for
safety wire connectors provides torque values in the absence of manufacturers recommendations
but it only does it for certain things and we'll get that in that in a second it's not for all
things it's very specific things informational note number three additional information for
torquing threaded connections and terminations can be found in section 8.10 of nfpa 70b
2019 recommended practice for electrical equipment maintenance so that is everything nothing in there
says that you have to torque it just says that equipment needs to have torque values on it and
that if it does have torque values or if it says anything in the instructions about torque values
that you need to use an approved means of twerking last thing i want to talk about is annex i i'm
not going to talk about it much because there's not much to talk about but it is worth at least
mentioning uh annexes again just extra information they're not requirements their recommendations in
this case so it says under informative annex i recommended tightening torque tables from
ul standard 486a through 486b uh in the absence of connector equipment manufacturer recommended
torque values table i1 i2 and i3 may be used to correctly tighten screw type connections
that's very specific screw type connections only for power and lighting circuits control and signal
circuits may require different torque values and the manufacturers should be contacted for guidance
so there's different strandings there's all kinds of different things you can't really guarantee
that something just because it has a size screw is going to be the same like basically if you're
tightening on one type of conductor if you have a certain kind of insulation there's certain things
that can tighten a certain amount that might be able to fit in the same applications but because
of the specific application of wire or something that you're putting in there the torque value is
going to be different so you can't really have a fixed torque value for everything across the board
it also says for proper termination of conductors it's very important that the field connections be
properly tightened in the absence of manufacturers instructions on the equipment the torque values
given in these tables are recommended because it is normal for some relaxation to occur
in service checking torque values sometime after installation is not a reliable means
of determining the values of torque applied at installation so all that to say should you
you know it doesn't use the word shall that's like the law in electrical code right you
shall do this or it shall be permitted to be uh the word shell is not in there does
not tell us that we have to torque but we do have to follow manufacturer's instructions so
on one hand like should we or like do you have to do it no should you
maybe it depends you know if your if your inspector's gonna make you do it then i
mean obviously yeah but the other side of it is like it's up to you to be doing work up to like
whatever your standards are whatever you feel is a quality install i always recommend people do work
to the to to impress themselves basically when you step away from something and you look at it
and you're checking off all the boxes in your head do you feel like you just killed that install or
when you walk away are you kind of like jesus i hope nobody ever sees that i like to torque
my terminations at services when i you know in our area it's kind of a practice we have to do
it so i've just gotten used to doing it so but i'm not out here doing a custom home that's got
like 1050 receptacles and like getting a torquing screwdriver and torquing every single one of them
it's just until like some kind of thing is like stamps down and demanded that i waste an extra
eight hours of time every single day going that extra mile i'm just not going to do it but if
there is something you know personally if there is something that comes out i will follow it but
that's just my opinion though i'm sure you got yours leave it below make sure that you
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go to the electrician you subreddit uh we started a subreddit it's kind of small still that's why i
want you to go there but that's the place i want you to post like funny crazy weird stuff so like
if you find really weird installs you find just like haggard messy crap anything that's funny
if you're watching a tv show and they're doing something stupid you're like bro that would never
happen it's like electrical in nature send all that stuff use reddit for that i'm going to start
doing some kind of like reactionary videos anyways enough talking at you love you crazy people thank
you so much for watching and the constant support and i will see you in the next one
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