ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Parallel vs. Series

WFO, Receptacles with backstabs are no longer made with holes that will accept wire larger than #14. It's been about 10 years since the ones with #12 holes were discontinued. Also, the receptacles state "#14 Solid Copper Wire Only" right on the back.

I always pigtail the neutral when installing a receptacle. It has nothing to do with series or parallel. (whether or not you pigtail it, it's still wired in parallel) I do it so that the next electrician to come down the pike won't have to deal with breaking the neutral to the rest of the circuit if he has to replace the recept.
If the recepts are part of a multi-wire branch circuit, 300.13 prohibits using the device as a splice anyway.

Art. 300.13 is very important - especially if you value your paycheck and don't want to pay for the customers expensive television set that you accidentally sent 160 volts to instead of the required 120. Oh, and the the other half of the branch circuit won't have enough voltage to operate whatever load it has. Bottom line, splice your neutrals at the receptacle box where the 3-wire homerun is run to, to avoid damaging equipment. There is no worse a feeling than destroying some guys new plasma television set because you failed to give the other outlets upstream a return path to ground.

Quote:
"WFO, Receptacles with backstabs are no longer made with holes that will accept wire larger than #14. It's been about 10 years since the ones with #12 holes were discontinued. Also, the receptacles state "#14 Solid Copper Wire Only" right on the back."

Shows my ignorance. I never used the backstabs anyway and haven't paid any attention to them.
Thanks.

WFO, even if you wanted to stab-lock wih #12cu, you couldn't, because the stab-lock terminal is only big enough to (1) #14cu. I agree with you and don't use them either even it is ok to use them since they are UL rated.

i use the back wiring but you still screw the wire down. I don't pigtail outlets. If you do get a bad outlet or loose wire and that outlet hardly gets used you would never know it is faulting.by killing everything down stream it would become noticable and fixed quicker.

If you pig tail your outlets...the one that is faulty will be the one that is NOT working. The rest of the circuit will not be effected by the faulty device.

Larry,
If the recept is part of a multiwire branch circuit, the code requires you to pigtail the neutral.
Not doing so can cause 220v. through everything down line.