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Remembering the old wire nuts versus the new push-in connectors
I was rewiring a 1960s house in Tacoma last fall and found the original twist-on wire nuts. They were fine, but I had a box of the newer push-in connectors with me. The push-ins cut my time on each outlet by about half, maybe 15 seconds per connection, and the grip feels more solid. It's hard to go back to twisting after that. What's your go-to for simple splices these days?
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henderson.brooke7mo ago
Hold on, you're missing the big picture. Those push-in connectors are a total pain if you ever need to fix or change something later. I've had wires get stuck in there so bad I just cut them off. That 15 seconds you save now turns into 10 minutes of cussing later. Give me a good old twist-on wire nut any day, you can see the connection and it comes apart clean.
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the_jennifer7mo ago
That 15-second saving adds up fast on a full rewire. Have you ever had to pull a wire back out of a push-in connector, and did it go smoothly? I worry about rework being a pain.
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ivan_fisher995mo ago
Yeah but isn't that the same with a lot of stuff these days... everything's made to be fast and easy upfront but a nightmare if something goes wrong later. I've noticed that with cheap outlets and switches too, where the screw terminals strip out if you look at them wrong. Seems like the whole trade is shifting toward disposable convenience over stuff you can actually work on again.
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