Should You Wrap Outlets In Electrical Tape?

how's it going you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and the question today is should you use electrical tape wrapping the receptacle before putting it back within the box it's a good question and it's actually something that's been commented hundreds of times on my different electrical videos so i was curious i put a survey out there and i want to review the results of you across 1400 people that voted so we'll review those results i'll show you an example of wrapping because there's actually something that i see a lot of people do wrong so just do a quick demo of wrapping and this is an instance actually right behind me when i do use electro tape to wrap a receptacle personally and then finally we'll touch on wire nuts also a comment many people say about wire nuts but there is something you need to look out for if you're using electro tape on wire nuts let's look at the results if you jump on my channel page there's a tab called the community tab now if you scroll down you'll see just posts that i have put out there whether it's just pictures an other survey so i have a wirenet survey currently out there with over 4 000 votes coming in so that will be a topic of a future video super interesting stuff and then we get down to the results from the great tape debate that's what i called it and so the question was do you wrap outlets or receptacles with electrical tape when wiring curious get your feedback here are the results across those 1400 different voters and basically what this is telling us because the options were yes no or only when in metal boxes so 33 or 1 3 of the voters say yes i use electrical tape for all or at least most receptacles i installed then if we add metal boxes so if you're working with metal electrical boxes you actually would need to add the 17 percent that shifts to 50 50. about half and half across all the voters in terms of wrapping receptacles with electrical tape now personally this one behind me is a gfci receptacle that i am installing to replace an old two-prong receptacle because this does not have an equipment ground doesn't have a ground wire coming to the box now in this case this is a tight electrical box and the gfcis as you know are quite a bit larger so in that case i am going to wrap two wraps of electrical tape around this receptacle what kind of tape do you use i mean i used the 3m super 33 plus 3m back in january 1946 got the patent for vinyl electrical tape remember back in the 40s and even in the 50s in some areas knob and tube wiring was still the way to wire up the house so you were splicing and soldering wires together and then you needed to insulate that splice before electrical tape it was kind of a tar-coated cotton wrap super messy deteriorated over time and it had some sulfur in it which actually could lead to some corrosion of parts around it so when 3m came up with electrical tape it was a massive step forward it originally was just super 33 now if you go out to any home improvement store now you're going to see a bunch of different varieties but the super 33 plus i mean it's going to fit most your needs so i go with 3m there's many other varieties on the market you're going to pay a little bit more probably for 3m than some of the knockoffs but you get what you pay for and the person jumping in and working on that receptacle 10 years down the line is going to thank you for it i'm going to wrap this receptacle so i can install it and then point out one thing i do see people do wrong which is not recommended by 3m so as expected wrapping is easy enough but i do start on the top and i do not stretch the tape yet so without the tape stretch to just start that wrap you kind of have to go around your mounting screws so i do stretch the tape which is recommended while installing electrical tape [Music] so you pull it out small stretch i know in the comments that i'm not a pro here right it's taking me way too long now one thing i do see done incorrectly is i want to finish it off a lot of people just pull that snap it and then apply that end to the receptacle or whatever you're taping but that is actually not recommended so i just use my micro side cutters here you know cut that off because your end you do not actually want to apply any tension to you don't want to stretch it so you just want to lay it back down on the layers below it and then that's going to make for a better more secure end here where it's not stretched out and it might start to peel off over time so easy as that and then this is an actual instance where i will install that just because you can see how tight this gfci is to a metal box so i do like to cover that up so i would be on the 50 of people that use it within the metal electrical boxes so lastly we'll talk about wire nuts and using electrical tape at the bottom of the wire nut why i do not do this i do not recommend doing this is because the electrical tape is meant to be just an insulator it is not meant to hold the wires together now you don't have to be doing any electrical work very long before you know a common failure is an improperly installed wire nut where one or more of the wires is not securely fastened and is causing an issue could cause heat and arcing over time now this can give you a false sense of security you can do your pull test and everything seems like it's secure but that is actually not the wire nut that is securing it which is what you want to happen the electrical tape is actually securing those wires together in this instance everything seemed to be secure but as soon as you take off the electrical tape then you can see basically one of those wires is just sitting in there this is not uncommon in the use of electrical tape on wire nuts again it's just supposed to be an insulator it's not supposed to securely hold those in so i just think it can cause more issues if you're using it on wire nuts so that's it just wanted to give you guys that feedback because i thought it was really interesting results coming in from that poll we put out if you want to vote on the wire nut poll and what kind of wire nuts you use go on our channel page and then the community tab and you'll see those polls in there as always let me know what you think jump down in the comments and give give your two cents get your experience in my region it's i'd even say it's less than 50 and then before you take off don't forget to subscribe to our channel as we have multiple videos coming out per week to help you guys with repairs and improvements around the house and we'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 391,101

Keywords: 3m electrical tape, 3m super 33 electrical tape, electrical tape around outlet, electrical tape wire nuts

Id: mY45ZDdiPn4

Length: 7min 16sec (436 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 25 2021