Which Splicing Device is Best? Push Ins Vs. Wago Vs. Wirenuts

a few months ago I posted a video showing some of the bigger mistakes that diy-ers make when connecting wires together or using splicing devices so I'm going to be going through each one of the splicing devices or I should say some of the more common splicing devices that people are using or that are available and based on everything that I've researched and what I've heard from folks out in the field I'll give you my opinion as far as maybe where they should be used more maybe where they should be used less or maybe where you just shouldn't use them at all so let's go ahead and Jump Right In let's go all right so I'm going to start off by talking about this push and connector and it is made by ideal now getting into the pros of this one of the nice things about this is that it can handle a pretty wide array of wire sizes in this case this one can go all the way from number 20 wire all the way up to number 12 wire so the way that this works is it's pretty easy you've got your holes here on the bottom side and you just take your wiring and you just push it up inside of each of those holes and what's nice about this is you can see inside of there through this clear plastic that you have it all the way seated up in the top of this connector now this metal goes all the way across this connector and this is what's going to then Supply Power from whichever wire is supplying the power to the remaining wires that are inserted into this so let's say this is the wire that's supplying the power we'll just take our next wire if we want to connect these two together and all you got to do is like the first one is just push it up inside until it seats all the way up into the top top so now these two wires are connected by using the splicing device now if you see this little Channel that's right here and if we flip it up to the top side you can see this little hole here what's nice about that is you can actually insert a probe in there so that while this is being energized you can stick a probe in there and test to see what kind of amperage you have running into this splicing device now to get into some of the cons of this we talked about that piece of metal that's going in between all the wires that's what actually connects them on these particular devices that metal is pretty thin so that doesn't provide a whole lot of surface contact between the wires and that metal which leads to a little bit higher resistance which also leads then to them heating up a little bit more now in the limited amount of occasions where I have used these they're typically going to be in your low amperage situations I've really only used them in lighting situations and so far they've done a really good job and in those situations I'm not worried about using them at all I just personally and the electricians I've talked to don't really trust these enough in order to install them in say your junction boxes or receptacle boxes so now let's talk about the way go 221 now the way that these juegos work is you've got these levers here on top and you've also got these little holes here these are the inputs for the wires so in order to insert the wire all you have to do is lift up on these levers and that now opens up those holes there and then you just take your wiring you put it up inside of that input there and what I like to do is I like to turn it over here to the bottom side one thing that's really really nice about these is I have a clear view of everything that's going on as far as where that wire is at I can see it's fully seated up in the top so once I verified that it's in place all I have to do then is just flip that lever down and now it's clamped into place and it would take a lot of force I've tried it will take a lot of force in order to be able to pull that out of there so then in order to make a connection between this wire and a second wire all I have to do is again I just flip it upside down insert it in make sure it's seated where it needs to be and flip that lever down and now they're both locked in place and now these two wires are connected so then if we flip it over here on this side you'll see here this is actually a strip gauge it's going to tell you exactly how much insulation to strip off of the wiring to make sure that you're going to get that good connection that you're wanting if we flip it over here to the other side and it also tells us our wiring sizes that this can accept so this one can go all the way down to 24 gauge or number 24 wire and then all the way up to number 12 or 12 gauge wire so that's a very large range which is another really nice thing about these wagos is that you don't have to have a ton of different ones especially for residential wiring in order to use them for your wiring needs now another really big Pro to these is the different kinds of wiring that you can use with them so you can take your solid core like we've had installed and just install that and then what you can do is you can take a stranded wire and if you're wanting to connect solid core to stranded all you got to do is just like the solid core insert it up inside verify that it's seated the way that you want and then flip that lever down so now without a doubt you've got a very good connection between a solid core wire and a stranded wire now another really nice feature about these juegos is that they make things a lot simpler to do so if you have to come back maybe you have to do some service to your wiring or maybe you're adding an outlet and you need to have more spots for wires all you got to do is lift up all those levers pull all your wires out and then get a larger Wego and then just install all of your wires whether you need three four five whatever it may be e it's very quick and easy to swap out but now let's get into some of the possible negatives so let's flip this over to the back so again this bar here is what's supplying the power between the wires and since there's not a whole lot of surface contact between each of these wires and the wires themselves that ultimately leads to higher resistance which in turn leads to higher heat Now is it going to be enough heat to cause a huge problem well that depends on who you ask because I got plenty of feedback from electricians that found these to overheat and actually cause a big issue but then you also talk to a bunch of electricians that have had no issues whatsoever so I guess it depends on who you ask and what their experience is but probably the biggest con that I've come across and this is totally understandable is if we flip this over let's say that you've installed this because a lot of times the reason devices fail is because they were installed incorrectly but let's say that you installed this correctly you verify to everything is exactly the way that it should they're all clamped down but when people have pushed these into the back of the box they found that they've caught on some of those wires or they've caught on the box themselves and the installer just didn't notice that it happened but it gets caught on one of those things and it actually flips open one of these levers and then it's just left that way unbeknownst to the installer well now we've got a big problem because with this being wide open gravity itself can just pull this wire out it's not going to take hardly any Force whatsoever to pull a wire out of this connection if this lever is up and so we're going to have a really big problem there with having a loose wire in a box so my best advice for if you're going to use these is when you go to push them into the back of the box put your thumb across those levers and until it's seated where you want it to be leave your thumb on those levers just to make sure that nothing can get caught on them and they can't be be pulled open once you've got it seated in the box where you want it and you've got it pushed back in there then you can let go and for the most part you can be rest assured that these are going to stay connected the way that they should be for a very long time now where my electrician friends love using these things especially is in commercial applications in big box stores for instance they're constantly having to change out the ballast up in those lights so these things again for the same reasons they're super easy they just flip those up pull the wiring out install the new ballast plug them in and again it's all just plug and play they're in and out of there in no time another place where I've been using these on occasion is I have used them in receptacle boxes or junction boxes in the event that it's limited on space so this is a really cool device with a lot of upside hey really quickly before I get into the next controversial subject if you're finding value in this video and you're finding it to be helpful if you could do me a huge favor hit that thumbs up button right down below it really does help the video out to spread out to other people and hopefully be able to help them out as well I really appreciate it let's get back into it so now we're going to talk about the wire nut and at least here in the United States this is by far the most installed splicing device when doing wiring so the way that these work is if we flip this upside down you can see up inside of here that piece of metal that's up in there that's like a spring or a coil and that's used for in my opinion it's used for two purposes number one it just provides another way to provide a really good connection between all the wires that are inserted into this wire nut the other thing is that coil that's up in there will also help to bite into the wiring so it's going to help hold this wire nut on and it's also going to help hold that wiring together once it's up inside of there now in order to make sure that this is done correctly you want to make sure that you keep spinning it and it's going to start getting tight so what I'd like to do is I I like to keep spinning it until I get a decent little braid down here below the wire nut by having this braiding down below the wire nut what that's going to tell me is more than likely I have a nice joint forming underneath of this wire nut or those wires are wrapping into or around each other the way that they should be in order to have a good connection so I'll show you what that means I'll take this wire nut off and as you can see the wires are wanting to wrap around each other the way that they should but if you're like me and so many electricians what usually is done is you'll put your wires up next to each other and then take a set of lineman pliers and pre-twist these wires together and then I would take my wire nut put it on top and tighten it down nice and tight another really big Pro and I think why many people still are using wire nuts especially here in the US is because once you remove that wire nut if we look at this again look at all the surface contact that those wires are making with each other this is going to provide for lower resistance and much lower heat now let's talk about some of the cons of using a wire nut because they're not perfect either like I mentioned earlier you can't see underneath of this wire nut to make sure that you're making a good connection and everything's being connected the way that it should be so this is not quite as DIY friendly as some of these devices that I showed before where you can clearly see up underneath and through that plastic that you are making a good connection so if this is not installed correctly what can end up happening is like we talked about a little while ago wires can just fall out and you can have a big issue another con to using wire nuts is especially when you're connecting a lot of wires together the bigger the wire nut is going to be so it takes up more space in your boxes now as far as applications where I'm using these if you've watched many of my previous videos you'll know that I use these the most so I'm using these in junction boxes I'm using them in receptacle boxes I'm using them just about anywhere other than the places where I told you I'm using some of the other devices now that's not to say that these other devices aren't any good I'm not saying that at all but as far as the way goes I can definitely see how it's going to continue to gain in popularity here in the United States especially the more that they innovate and upgrade these and especially the more that people become exposed to them because a lot of people don't even know that these exist still so overall again I don't see any reason to really buy the push-ins it would be between juegos and the wire nuts and it's really up to you which one you think is better for whatever situation that you have going on super DIY friendly easy to install has some potential downsides to it but overall has a good track record when they're installed correctly the wire nut not quite as DIY friendly but it's still very easy to install especially if following the directions and installing it correctly you know that you're going to have a good connection for many many many years hey if you like other electrical projects like I did here today I've done a bunch of those in the past I'll post some links right over here that you can click on to take you directly to those videos so I hope this video was helpful or entertaining if it was please do me a huge favor hit that thumbs up button right down below and of course again if you have any questions or comments you can leave those down in the comment section as well and I'll catch you all in the next one see ya

Channel: How To Home

Views: 828,061

Keywords: Wago, Wirenuts, Splicing Devices, Push In Connectors, Connecting wires together, splicing wires together, wago vs wirenuts, push ins vs wages vs wirenuts, how to, how to home

Id: gC3PI2Plw98

Length: 13min 6sec (786 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 06 2022