ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Pigtailing vs. Wiring-thru normal outlets

Usually when I see that done it is daisy chaining devices in a gang box.

I suppose you could strip the RX jacket 12" or so, Fold it and jam it through the connector and connect it up inside but I bet the regular way ends up being faster.
314.16(B)(1) does acknowledge the method

I was trained in a wire-thru province, and moved to a pigtail province. Needless to say I was the fastest splicer in the province for about 3 hours

I share the view of the extinction of the electrician to the assembler... with all this quick-connect technology.
A prefab world needs very little but a rubber mallet... and a machine-u-facturer.

In my training with wire-thru, I learned very quickly that making a circuit with my hand, with a load downstream, is like gettin bit by an electric cat!. So I took my time to trace the circuit and shut it off most of the time (CEC 2-304 Disconnecting). Especially with a possible 9 wires going to one plug.

My experience with wire-thru has left me almost fearless of live pig-tail circuits. Feels like a 9v battery on my tongue. And with these weird plastic boxes, shorts are a rarity, almost refreshing.

In some ways I like pigtailing better, but I know that the more stricter the rules get (safety/security), the more technology becomes quick-connect, the less respect the next generation of electricians will have for that animal we call electricity, as we push it further away into products.

I suppose the most elegant method would be to pigtail with stranded wire and use back clamp devices.

Reno,

Now that you mentioned it, I believe I did it too when I was an apprentice with my first boss. I think we also did it with the ground wire too.

If you don't pigtail, when you have a problem with a plug, then all plugs downstream are done.....in Canada, it's a code rule that you have to pigtail, so you don't interupt anthing down stream if you have to work on something. Here is another reason that i have been seeing lateley, if you check the push in's 2 or 3 years down the road, the mechanical mechanism loosens up over time and you start to get arching and sparking.....not good. Especially in my house.

I always thought it was a code rule too, but the only thing i ever found in the code was that a MWBC needed the neutral pigtailed

This is another discussion on the Canadian rule here

Actually having everything go off downstream might not be a bad idea. This way you know that there is a problem. If you pigtail all the devices, everything downstream would still work except the one bad receptacle and you might not find that out for many months later.

only problem is if i go into a business to fix a problem, some guy down the hall won't be happy when i switch out the plug and his computer crashes.....another reason to pigtail..i can't see a disadvantage to it.

Don't you shut off the power anyway before you change the receptacle???