10 Things You Didn't Know About Outlets

so number one on the 10 things you might not know from a standard electrical outlet is what this little tab does between the two screw terminals so it really doesn't matter what brand or type you have here are three examples with an eaton residential grade has a tab eaten industrial grade has a much larger tab and then a hubble commercial grade with the tab on the reverse side now what that tab does is if you removed it from the hot and neutral side of your outlet you then would separate the top receptacle from the bottom receptacle and now they can work independent of each other and this is often called a switched outlet you actually might have had these in a house or an apartment you lived in over the year where you had a bedroom or a living room that had no ceiling lights it was super dark and you had a light switch on the wall that seemed to not do anything well that light switch might have actually controlled the top or bottom receptacle on all the outlets within the room this is much more common in little older homes in my area ranch style homes built in the 1950s or 60s it was pretty common for the living room and possibly even the bedrooms not to have ceiling lights but they had switched outlets that you could plug lamps into but associated to this it's also very common and i have purchased many homes in the past where somebody updated the outlets it was a room that was supposed to have switched outlets it had a switch on the wall but they just replaced the outlet without removing the tab so now all the outlets are powered all the time and the light switch literally doesn't do anything so maybe something to look out for if you have that issue around the house but let's move on to number two so number two deals with a feature called speed wiring and you can see that by these holes here and the slots also relate to this feature it's called a few different things by different brands but speed wiring is one of the most common terms now this only works with 14 gauge solid core wire if you do not know whether or not you have 14 gauge you can use the nickel and dime trick comparing the thickness of a dime so if that matches up you have 14 gauge if it matches up with a nickel then you have 12 gauge so we have 14 gauge here now speed wiring i do not recommend but it is very common so let's at least talk about it so it's that easy is you just push it into the hole and now you are wired the second point is associated to some confusion in that the screw terminals are not associated with holding in this wire when you use speed wiring so i will tighten in the screw terminals because you should never leave screw terminals just hanging out independent on if you're using speed wiring or not but me tightening in this wire does not hold this wire in so point number two is that the screw terminals are independent of speed wiring point number three is that speed wiring can be removed so i can put a screwdriver in this slot and remove the wire but that feature is one and done so i should not use this outlet again and use that speed wiring because it should only be used once now why is that we'll look at the internals of this leviton outlet so with speed wiring you really only have this tab that's biting into the wire and holding it in place so when you push through the slot you're pressing that tab open and you might deform it thus making the wire loose the next time you actually apply it to speed wiring so that's why with point number three if you are using speed wiring which i don't necessarily recommend it is a one and done feature point number four builds on speed wiring but shows the other acceptable ways to wire so there's three different ways to wire an outlet we're showing speed wiring which we just reviewed and i'm not the biggest fan for this is a residential grade outlet with with the speed wiring built in here's a commercial grade eaton outlet with back wiring which is another method and the method i prefer back wiring is is again just a straight strand of copper i'll take that out to show you that's just a straight strand of copper and then it is being placed i'll get that plate to come between the plate and the screw itself so the screw tightens in and that is what holds that wire in place i prefer commercial grade outlets and i prefer back wiring i think back wiring produces the most consistent and safest result but that is just my opinion and i am not a licensed electrician and then the last way to wire is the most common but you might not know there are some features within different receptacles that can help you do this and that is called side wiring where you put the wire underneath the screw and this one specifically you can strip the insulation off and get your copper exposed use this hook here and then actually bend your wire around the screw terminal and now you have a shepherd's hook or a j hook in the clockwise direction around the screw terminal and you're ready you're ready to tighten it now remember you want to go in the clockwise direction for this third and most common type of wiring which is side wiring so we'll hit number five really quick and i do have a favor to ask of you guys if you have some time but number five is associated to the stripping guide that you'll find on the back of the housing for pretty much all outlets that are out there now the thing to know is that for this stripping guide for this specific outlet it's for one type of wiring so we just went through speed wiring back wiring and side wiring and specifically for this one when i match that up it is actually for the back wiring feature so if i wanted to do side wiring i actually need a little bit more insulation removed to do that effectively so the strip guide can be very handy but just make sure you're matching up how much insulation you're removing to the type of wiring you're doing so the favor i have to ask of you guys is feedback one we always welcome your comments and get great feedback from the audience which i really do appreciate but specifically on this video i really want to see the the experience level of the viewer so first thing i need to know is just if you're a pro or a diyer so that's all you got to put down pro or diy associated to your experience level and then a number following that and that number is the number that you didn't know so if you go through all 10 of these points and you actually knew everything except for three of those just put pro 3 or diy three then i'll know the experience level and that will really help to target the correct video and content as we move forward so that's it pretty simple just a little feedback down below would be greatly appreciated but let's move on to number six number six associates to why some designs are not flat like this one this one's a flat face but this one is not let me show you why so the reason for this is to actually help especially two prong plugs or adapters such as this find the slots so you can see the angles if you push against want to set you in the correct spot so especially in the dark you're trying to plug something in this helps you find the correct position and get your plug securely fastened in the outlet small design change but actually pretty handy so number seven associates to the word decora now decora usually for most people just means a more modern contemporary looking flat rectangular faced outlet compared to your standard duplex so most people say hey do you want standard duplex or decora if you're building a home or if you're working with an electrician and they're doing some work for you but decora is actually a trademark by leviton which is only one brand and they have a whole line of different components that go under the decor series this is very similar to other industries like bobcat hey go grab the bobcat and they mean a skid steer loader or completely different industry can you give me a kleenex when they actually mean tissue paper but because one brand was so common and so dominant their name kind of became synonymous for one product within the industry so a little fun fact for you but now we're hitting the home stretch with number eight i actually showed this in another video i had but i think it's kind of cool not super useful but pretty interesting and that is many eaton components like light switches and outlets like this one have built-in wire strippers for number 14 gauge wire and number 12 gauge wire now not wildly useful in terms of speed i don't think anybody's going to be rewiring their house using this other wire strippers maybe in a pinch maybe if your wire strippers were left in your truck and you just had one more wire to do this comes in useful where you can strip the wire get the outlet mounted and go on about your day so you have to at least give it to eden for some creativity in their design now number nine goes to a great debate within the community and that is do you install your outlets ground facing down or ground facing up now this was a video i've done in the past as hundreds of thousands of views and a ton of comments i also had people vote on what their preference was by hitting the like or alternatively by hitting the dislike button on the video and from that it looks like about 75 to 80 percent of people do ground facing down and the rest ground facing up now this is not called out nationally by nec so there is no standard to go off of unless you're on like a commercial job maybe a hospital job and then specifically for that job they're calling out in the specification for the electrical system on that job so depending on what region you're from what electrician you use who trains you you can have different opinions on this over time but from the feedback on tens of thousands of people hitting the like and dislike i would say three out of four people do ground facing down and now for number 10 and that is this is technically not an outlet more properly this would be referred to as a receptacle now those are to my friends that might have already left comments in this video saying stop calling it an outlet it's a receptacle but i think most people relate to outlet so that's why i use the word in my titles and in other videos that i do but just so you know the last one number 10 is that this is technically called a receptacle so that's it that's the 10 things that you don't know about an outlet but let me know in the comments are you a pro or are you a diyer and how many of these things did you not know that's going to really help myself in the channel just make sure we're targeting these videos for you as a viewer and make them as helpful as possible now any other comments you have are always welcome and if you haven't already don't forget to hit that subscribe and bell notification before taking off as we have multiple videos coming out per week to help you around your house with your repairs and improvements and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 1,297,134

Keywords: electrical outlet, electrical outlet basics, electrical receptacle wiring, switched outlet wiring, back wiring outlet, side wire vs back wiring, speed wiring outlet

Id: vUlvrX4R3jI

Length: 12min 30sec (750 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021