Today's Sketchy Sh*t

The outlet behind the TV is obviously newer than this one was, so I'm hoping it was done sans stab connections.
 
I used to wire houses on weekends, to make a bit of extra money (as hired help under a master electrician), anyway, I would never, ever use those back-stab connections, I always took the time to strip wires properly and use the screws. I always imagined blackmail was involved in those getting UL approval. I agree with above post which said use a spec grade outlet. For the extra money, it's a ton of extra quality.
 
I went to fish some romex and coax through a wall to add an outlet for a TV and found that the stud spaces were filled with (what I assume to be) scrap drywall. Talk about pissed, I had to abandon the project. Also - all 3 bedrooms - with the exception of the GFCI at the sink - are wired on a single 15A breaker, outlets and lights. Stoooo-pid.
 
Nothing surprises me at this point. I've seen melted scanners that someone tried to modify, and cars with scary unsafe "enhancements", so..

In 1965, we bought a house built in 1953. The owner, who was best buds with the drunks next door, was an infamous tightwad. It had some odd choices of light fixtures and a mismatched refrigerator and freezer, and a tiny "family room" added on, but nothing seemed to be wrong with it. Well, nothing you could see.

I had a large model train setup and huge slot car track (Thanks for the S&H green stamps, grandma!) set up in the back of the huge basement. About a month after we moved in, I was finishing setting up the trains, and I smelled plastic burning. I saw a little smoke coming out of the electrical box that powered my sisters bedroom which was almost all the entire second floor. I touched it and it was hot. So I opened it up and all the wire in it was brown, 16 gauge lamp cord. My dad came down and shook his head, and then called his dent headed (I mean a huge dent in his forehead!) electrician buddy who came (On Sunday!). He was muttering "Cheap BXXXard" and by dinnertime that night my sister's room had 3 10 gauge circuits running it. I helped pull the wires. That was in June. In October, we fired up the furnace and it caught on fire which I put out myself with the fire extinguisher she made my dad bring home.. Here comes "denty" again, and he opens up the furnace and all the info for the furnace, including the wiring diagram and the blueprints for the house were inside! He had to rewire almost everything inside the furnace. Funny thing, he used all blue wire for everything! This would come back and haunt us later on. Sadly, "Denty" fell though the roof of a local bowling alley and was killed. Just before my mom put the house on the market, the blower motor cooked itself and it caused a minor fire. We called a neighbor who owns a HVAC company and he sent a tech out who practically passed out with all the blue wire. He ended up rewiring it with multicolored wire. $$$

My dad never lived long enough to give the previous owner of our house a shot about the lamp cord and papers in the furnace, but I did. They had a party and for once, they invited us. Since my parents were just barely social drinkers they didn't fit in with them. My Beagle was outside doing his thing, which was yelling his head off, and the former owner, who was pretty drunk, says to everyone, "I wouldn't take that dog yapping, call the police, he's disturbing the peace of the neighborhood!". I was kind of waiting for him to say something stupid and off I went, "Well, at least he isn't the cheapskate who wired the top floor of his house with lamp cord, and put paper into the furnace, which started a fire! That was you!". Needless to say, he wasn't too fond of me from that point, or my dog, the biggest, toughest Beagle I've ever seen, almost 40 pounds of lungs and bad attitude
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He came from a famous field champ who was the second biggest Beagle I've ever seen. Oddly, my dog, who was the runt of the litter and barely made it, turned out to be a clone of his sire, but even bigger. And even more likely to rumble with other male dogs. Man, he could yell.


When we moved into our 15 year old house in 1982 (Which passed an "inspection" with flying colors!) I soon had the "pleasure" of finding the following issues over the next couple of years. Some of these were just a total shock:
1. Every single pipe from the gas meter (Inside) to the furnace was barely tight. I found this after 2 gas leaks.
2. Almost every light switch and outlet had loose screws on the wire connections. Fixed all the lights that were flickering.
3. There was aluminum wire from the fusebox to the AC fusebox outside the house. Came home from a trip and it was about 100 degrees and no AC. Checked the breaker and found a bunch of melted plastic due to the wire arcing due to the clamp not having any tension due to the wire crushing under tension. An electrician friend came over and rigged up a temp fix as the breaker had puked. Turned out the company who made the breaker box went out of business in the early 70\s, and trying to find anything but a 15 amp breaker for it was not going to happen, so we put a new larger breaker box in and I had him wire me up a 6 outlet box on 2 20amp circuits for my hifi/TV set up.
4. Dogs started acting strangely, all three walked around with their noses in the air, sniffing. At first, I felt fine, but then got a mild headache. The furnace had a major CO leak and I had to shut it down. It was about 20 outside. Turned out the entire flue going from the furnace into the chimney was badly done. It was "fixed", but about a year to the day later, the dogs started their nose in the air thing and again, I had no heat. A new furnace resulted in a redone flue and a much better draft. Oh, and the original furnace had a pilot light that went out if certain doors and windows were opened at the same time.
5. And the biggest hassle of all of the issues, the gas pipe OUTSIDE the house was also loose and I came home one morning and before I turned into the driveway, I smelled gas. A call to the gas company, and the gas was shut off. It was 10 degrees out. The "recommended" contractor wanted $1500 to dig up the line. We checked with a friend who had a guy who would do it for less. He and his kids dug it up, and tightened up the connection. I ended up giving the kids an extra $100 each because it was such a miserable job.
 
The outlet behind the TV is obviously newer than this one was, so I'm hoping it was done sans stab connections.

If a pro did it I would be willing to bet that at least all the 15A circuits are backstabbed. Time is money. At least today they are no longer legal for 20A circuits.

I used to wire houses on weekends, to make a bit of extra money (as hired help under a master electrician), anyway, I would never, ever use those back-stab connections, I always took the time to strip wires properly and use the screws. I always imagined blackmail was involved in those getting UL approval. I agree with above post which said use a spec grade outlet. For the extra money, it's a ton of extra quality.

Well props to you for having pride in your work. And I agree especially when you buy the receps in a 10 pack from a supply house, if you're just replacing a few in your own residence the extra $10 or so in cost is quickly forgotten but the extra quality will show 10-15 years down the road when they still grip a plug tight. Especially in say kitchen countertop receps or the one in the hallway that you're always plugging the vacuum cleaner into.

Another pet peeve of mine, irrelevant to the OP's post, but something that I see almost every time I replace a recep, NEC has strict requirements as to how much of a gap you can have between the drywall and the box, but it seems that drywall guys are completely incapable of meeting that spec. So I have a huge stack of "device leveler plates" I believe the exact part is Minerallac OR that I mail-ordered years ago, I want to say from Dale Electric because my local supply houses don't carry them, pretty much every time I replace a recep I end up slipping one of those behind it to give the plaster ears something to hit. If I'm repainting I'll shove the gap full of patching plaster but I don't always have that option when I'm doing a favor for someone living in a rented place... Drives me apeshit when I go to plug something in and the plastic cover plate cracks and the recep pushes back into the box. (oh yeah I also use metal cover plates, although my friend's retired master electrician father and I have just agreed to disagree about that one.)

Side note: in residential work today, tamper resistant receptacles are required pretty much everywhere save for exceptions like the one behind your fridge, under the sink for disposal, etc. HD carries 'spec grade' TR receps I know, although Lowe's does not seem to. I haven't checked my local supply house because it's been a long time since I've needed more than one or two.
 
There's not a single 15A breaker in the panel, they're all 20A and from what I can tell the wiring is 12ga to match. Is it legal to backstab 15A receptacles on a 20A breaker?
 
I like the ones with the clamps inside. They look sort-of like a back stab connection, but the screw actually pulls a plate against the wire to secure it. Thats usually the realm of higher end or 20 amp sockets though. Faster than bending eyes in the ends of the wire too. Most of the electrical work I do is at work in an industrial environment, so we buy good parts. When I do stuff at home I buy the same kind of stuff because its what I'm used to. Whenever I have to use the crappy parts I realize how spoiled I am by the better stuff.
 
There's not a single 15A breaker in the panel, they're all 20A and from what I can tell the wiring is 12ga to match. Is it legal to backstab 15A receptacles on a 20A breaker?

It used to be but it is not anymore. Backstabs are currently only listed for use with 14AWG solid and a 20A circuit would require minimum 12AWG.
 
There's not a single 15A breaker in the panel, they're all 20A and from what I can tell the wiring is 12ga to match. Is it legal to backstab 15A receptacles on a 20A breaker?
It is legal to use 15A receptacles in a 20A branch circuit supplying two or more receptacles provided the total cord-and-plug-connected load does not exceed 12 amps.
NEC Table 210.21(B)(2) and (3)

It is NOT legal to use 20amp recepts in a 15A circuit
 
I hate forming solid core wire.

There's kind of a technique to it. I suggest to get some #12, and practice stripping and forming it. Provided you're using good pliers, once you get the hang of it, it's really nice and fast. Use the taper of needle nose pliers to your advantage, just grip it at the point which forms the correct size loop. I like it much better than stranded, because once you form it, it stays put.
 
Solid wire is a pain in the ass, but does have some advantages. Landing it on screw terminals is one of them. with stranded wire, you pretty much have to crimp on fork terminals.
 
Solid wire is a pain in the ass, but does have some advantages. Landing it on screw terminals is one of them. with stranded wire, you pretty much have to crimp on fork terminals.

Yeah I'll only screw down stranded wire in stuff that's less critical. I clamped stranded wire to a switch in my DBT for example. Wouldn't do it in any kind of installed wiring.
 
There's kind of a technique to it. I suggest to get some #12, and practice stripping and forming it. Provided you're using good pliers, once you get the hang of it, it's really nice and fast. Use the taper of needle nose pliers to your advantage, just grip it at the point which forms the correct size loop. I like it much better than stranded, because once you form it, it stays put.

Also, apologies if you know this but some people don't seem to, when looping a wire around a screw, the loop should always go in a clockwise direction as you look at the screw head so that tightening the screw tightens the loop as well.
 
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