HOME WIRING REPAIRS IN THE REAL WORLD

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Next, you need to be adept at connecting wires to terminal screws. Make sure about 3/4" of insulation is stripped off the wire. Use needle-nose pliers to form a "hook" in the bare wire, then slip the hook under the terminal screw in a clockwise direction. When you tighten the screw (also clockwise), the hook will tend to close a little, making it even more secure. Of course, many switches and receptacles are now made so you can simply "plug" a straight piece of stripped wire right into the back of the terminal without forming a hook or using the screw. Use the handy strip gauge, which is found on the back of the device, to determine how much insulation to remove. Then just strip the wire and plug it in. Be sure to screw in any unused terminal screws on the device so they don't stick out and touch something they shouldn't — like you.

And now we're ready to pack it in — the wires, that is. No one talks about this, but getting all those wires back into a box safely can be a challenge. One technique I've found helpful is to pre-bend the wires into an "S" shape before attaching them. The wires will fold up easily and neatly, like the folds of an accordion bellows. And perhaps this would be a good way to close, talking about something that is "easy" and "neat," because as I (and now you) know all too well, that's not always the way it is in the real world.

GET GROUNDED

"I don't know why these 'codes' guys are always fussin' over everybody having everything grounded. Why, the next thing you know, they'll be making us hang big copper wires from the sky in our backyards, just so lightning won't come down and kill us." — Anonymous old geezer, shortly before he was electrocuted by an ungrounded pump that he used to fill his jugs with corn squeezings. I'm using humor solely to gain your attention, because the topic of grounding is no joke. If you don't see aground wire in your fixture's box, you have one chance left with the power on, see if a test light comes on when you touch one probe on a hot wire and the other probe on the metal fixture box. If it lights, the wires on that circuit maybe in metal conduit or flexible steel (called armored cable), and the jacket of metal is acting as aground wire. Although they may not be considered as good as a continuous copper ground wire, armored cable and metal conduit are accepted by most codes as a means of grounding. If the test light doesn't come on, you're probably dealing with an old, ungrounded system.

Some "experts" say you can drop a ground wire out of the box and connect it to the nearest cold water pipe to ground just that box, but I wouldn't do it. If you're going to go to that much trouble, consider installing a new, grounded cable from the distribution box to the circuit involved. To ground in metal boxes, connect a short (6") piece of ground wire to the box with a ground screw or, if there is no tapped hole, a grounding clip. Always make these "pigtails" with wire of the same gauge as the circuit wires entering the box — usually #12 or #14. Check the device to be installed. Some, like many light fixtures, already have a ground wire protruding. Others, like switches and receptacles, need another short ground wire attached to their green ground terminal screw. Now connect the box's ground wire and the device's ground wire to all other ground wires entering the box (as part of a cable) by using a wirenut. (For armored cable or metal conduit boxes that have no separate ground wires, just wirenut the box's ground wire to the device's ground wire.) When working in newer, plastic boxes, no ground wire is connected to the box, but all other ground wires that I mentioned have to be installed and wirenutted together. For a circuit that ends in a plastic box, the lone ground wire from the cable can be attached directly to the device's ground terminal or wire. And what about light switches? Some switches are sold with ground terminals and some without them. Although some local codes may allow switches without a ground terminal, and there may be cases that don't require them (like directly attaching a switch to an already-grounded metal box), error on the safe side: always install a grounded switch. Finally, keep in mind that specific grounding instructions included with a device always supersede my general guidelines.

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