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
