Basic Residential Wiring

Hi my name is Sam Maltese Today we are going to talking about wiring residential homes basically wooden structures in most wooden structures and residential we use a cable called NMD90 Non-metallic sheath cable also known has Romex cable most of these cables go into outlet boxes in different sizes and at different heights there is nothing in the code book that says what height a box needs to be mounted at but in general we mount our switches for lights at 52 inches our counter plugs for the kitchen at 42 inches and usually in our washrooms our GFI plugs at 45 inches are plugs along the wall are usually mounted around 16 inches to the bottom the box could be 14 I guess said there is no specific rule that requires a height and whatever is more comfortable for the customer or the electrican that is installing the outlets. so once again in this case we used the bottom of the box around 16 inches as I mentioned before our counter should be at 42inches washroom would be at 45 inches our switches will be at 52 some of the most common materials use and residential wiring in homes are on this table we are going to discuss very general so we can know what kind of material are needed what kind of devices we will be using, and how to install them here you see the five most common cables used in residential wiring you have the 14/2 Non-metallic sheath cable or romex 12/2 cable use for baseboard heaters is most common use for lights and plugs and everything else you have 14/3 that maybe use for split plugs in the kitchen or for 3-way switches you have your 10/3 that is used for your dryer and you have it 3 conductor number 8 wire that is use for your stove this is designed to handle your 40 amps designed to handle 30 amps this can 15 amps 20 amps and 15 amps on most of these cables on the outside sheath you will find markings indicating the size a wire and the conductors you notice on the stove cable it says that it is an 8 gauge wire and three conductors 3c so 8 American Wire Gauge three conductor this a repeat for your 14/2 , 10/3 and your 14/3 they all have markings on it hear somebody devices you'll be installing your outlet boxes you have a single-pole switch you have a three way switch a regular u-ground receptacle a GFI plugged, A stove receptacle and a dry receptacle your single pole switches such as this one has two screws on the side there both the same color there's no distinction between be silver or brass as in the other devices but in general the hot wires is connected on the top screw and the wire going back to the light is connected on the bottom, in a three-way switch you will notice that there is screws on both sites there's two brass screws on the top and a black screw at the bottom the black screw indicates the common point the three way switch and the travelers in the in a 14/3 wire go on the brass screws when dealing with the receptacles you have a green screw for the ground the silver screws on this side indicate the neutral and if you flip the plug over you see these screws are brass that indicates that is where the hot wire goes or the black. so the neutral and the ground are on the same side. you'll also notice as if you look at the front that one of these slots is longer than the other the shorts slot represents the hot wire where the brass is the GFI is the same as a plug it has two different colors on both sides for hot and for neutral with the green at the top Your stove plug has three prongs the u being the ground right below would be the neutral and these would be the two hot if you turn it around they're usually marked on here what color they take this takes a ground a hot, hot and the neutral says White there and you see is says X & Y over here this plug also know in the code book as a 14- 50R so 14-50R is the name for a stove receptacle the other receptacle very similar to that is the dry receptacle it is known as a 14-30R the 30 represents 30 amps just like the 50 represents 50 amps on the stove the only difference between the two you will notice that the configuration here is different from the from the stove the stove has all straight straight slots the dryer has this little "L"so that is a good way of knowing you're dealing with a dryer receptacle just remember that "L" represent laundry the back is the same as the stove that has four screws one takes a ground one takes a neutral and a red and black are the hots there are 4 types a box I want to talk about today the most common is known as the 1104 it is 2 inches wide 3 inches long and this one here is 2 1/2 inches deep that's a standard box that's used for most which is a plugs you'll also notice at the back there are screws for fastening your ground wires there is clamps top and bottom so you can bring your cables in the top and on the side here some will have these indicators indicating that they line up with the stud so that when you put the drywall there box isn't recessed will show that later. Same type of box but in this case it's just a little deeper the reason is deeper is so that I if your are using it for a GFI plug there is more room at the back for wires so when installing GFI plug we usually use a box it is three-inches deep. another box that's used is the 14 by 11/16 that is made use for your dryer and stove plug. much bigger box for much bigger receptacle another box that is used quite often is these new foam boxes that are made out of plastic these are used on the exterior walls of a house the create vapor barrier and no moisture gets in or all cold air gets in if you lookaround you see it it's got foam on top so when you pierce with the cable the kinda seals around it and preventing moisture from coming in and you get no drafts in your home the three most common staples use for romex wire are the S1 , S2 and S4 S1 is designed to handle 14/2 and 12/ 2 cable S2 is designed for 14/3 S4 is designed for your stove cable so depending on the size the cable you use the correct staple as you can see that's designed for your stove cable This is design for your 14/2 or 14/2 and your S2 designed for your 14/3 cable each cable has a different height so it stops at the wood and giving it enough space in between to the cable doesn't get crushed the whole intention up the staple is to just keep the cable in place and not to fasten it too tight but just prevented from moving around another type of connector that is used are these plastic connectors that take cables by just pushing them in and they passed through in lock in place they do not slip back when using electrical devices or anything to do with electricity most products will come with a CSA approval look for the symbol that means it has been approved to be used in Canada is the box for Staples number one and if you look at it very closely though says it is designed for one single cable of 14/2 or one single cable of 12/2 if you move over to the next box and we were to zoom in a bit you'll notice that this staple can handle a 14/2, 12/2 a 14/3 a 12/3 10/2 and a 10/3 so obviously it can handle many more cables that are thicker it also says you put two cables together of 14/2 and two cable of 12/2 to so you can basically stacked one atop the other and still uses this cable if you move over to the connector the connector says a grey connector we were showing says you can only put one cable in up 14/2 or one cable 14/3 or one cable 12/2 or 10 /2 not two cables at the same time so this cable so this cable the conductors are only designed to take 1 cable at a time there are manufactures the design and connectors that will take two cables but you need to have this cover or this information to prove the electrical inspector that your equipment can take two cables if you have this information then it meets code Now that we know some materials and devices and boxes and connectors and staples we are going to be using we can now move on to the proper way of installing the cables into the box in general most boxes require at least 6 inches of wires after they've been installed box as That is due to Canadian code so how much this wire outside sheath do I need to strip so that when I'm done I have six inches wire. I usually the 10 inch rule and I can usually line it up between here and my elbow roughly ten inches or you can take hand with the thumb out and a fist that should be about 10 inches roughly that much is 10 inches for me the more experience you have you learn to quick decide what his 10 inches. so you to take your cable and you take your knife using a 14/2 you can run it down the middle to strip the cable along copper and take the outer sheath cut it off be careful not to nick the wires take the outer sheath off. so you have the black and white and ground leftover and then you're gonna install it into the box Top of each the of the boxes are the little holes you can take out so you can put it into the into the box and they make your connections. we'll move in closer so you can see exactly how that's done okay we are zoomed in the box I'm gonna take my cable now and gonna put it into the back of one of holes and bring the cable forward I put a little bit of curve so when I push it in it comes forward doesn't get caught in the back and I want the cable the point where I can just see the white in the back. you want to see the sheath and you tighten the clamp on the screws. not too tight just enough enough so when you tug on it, it doesn't come loose and still stays in the box so that's what we're looking for is for the cable not to move what I then do is take my black wire move that up and white wire leaving only my only my copper in any box you should be grounding the box to the ground conductor whether it be a switch a plug or the stove or dryer they all need to be grounded so you gonna take this copper wire you gonna wrap it around the screw in the back in a clockwise direction you always do it clockwise so when you tighten the screw it actually pulls in the copper so you can see I wrapped it around clockwise and now I'm going to tighten the screw so that the copper now is bonded to the box. You will notice now that my copper and if I take my black and white wires down now you'll notice that they are a little shorter. the copper wire is a little shorter because I wrapped around the screw so what I usually do is trim them all the same length so that the when making the connection to your plug they all look and connect very evenly so I will trim those two and now if I were to measure from the edge of the box to the end of my cables I should have six inches. We have re-position the camera now so you get a better view of the length on the cable remember the code requires six inches from the edge the box. there will be drywall here so I gotta see is the edge in this box at the drywall we take our tape measure put it there and you will notice that we are about roughly at six inches and that's the minimum amount of wire require as per code. so turn that way you see the six that we have six inches minimum I could have 8 I could have nine I have to have six that is a minimum code requirement the next step would be to either hook up a plug if we were down towards the floor or in this case we would hook up a switch. either one the plug is obviously gonna need a ground so you need to have this ground wire out most switches do not have a ground so if you want you can tuck this ground wire nicely back towards the back so it and interfere does not touch when some of the black wires in general when dealing with switches I like to cut the ground wire back at the screw and leave nothing coming forward and I just leave the the ground with my receptacles we are now ready to hook up our plug or switch so I usually like to strip an inch off insulation off the white and inch of the black insulator this allows me to take my strippers and make a loop such as that make a loop make a loop and once again when putting these wires on the screws you should always be rapping the conductor in a clockwise rotation so when you tighten the screwed its sucks the wiring in. if using the switch the Hotwire would go on the top and the wire going to the light would go on the bottom so we're going to hook up the plug in this case the black wire or go on the brass screw. once again in a clockwise direction wrap the wire around and tighten up the screw the screws on plugs and switches is is a green Robbie wrap the white wire on the silver screw followed by the ground it's on the same side as neutral should be no wires sticking out everything should be underneath screws you're ready to install the plug push the wires in there is no code that says which way the plug should go whether it be with the ground up or down person like they have the ground on the top but most people are familiar looking at it with the ground the bottom the screw that come with the plugs are 6/32 they go into they go into the holes here. and if he had drywall here they be fastening them here and you would tighten that to a point where it stops on the drywall we have no drywall just a demonstration but this could be a switch could be a plug the same principle applies to all devices so for today s a general rules for putting in 14/2 wire into a box same rule applies for 14/3 or 12/2 to or stove you always need need that six-inches coming out from the box

Channel: Sam Maltese

Views: 2,052,482

Keywords: residential wiring, Electrical home wiring, romex wiring, NMD90 wiring, House wiring, Electrical Wiring, Basic residential wiring, wiring, stove receptacle, receptacle, GFI, light switches, plugs

Id: hKtedrJKyQs

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 16 2014