Old electrical outlet?

Question

i am helping a friend replace outlets in her house.
The house was built in the 1950s.

I have done this type of work (do it yourself style). This weekend, i ran into something that i have never seen before.

http://www.acehardware.com/graphics/info/shared/ACE_Projects_AddWiring2.jpg

The diagram above shows a normal installation.

The outlet that i replaced only used the top screw on each side. But it was a continuous loop. So the wire didn't end in this box, it kept going someplace. So, they just stripped a small part of the sheathing away, attached it behind the screw, and the wire keeps going.

Quesion. Is that "normal" or should i cut the wire and attached one half to the top screw and the other half to the bottom screw? It just seems a little unsafe...

Thanks

Answer 1

It used to be normal and you can continue to do it, but since they now make outlets always with two screws (for two reasons actually - continuing the load or splitting the outlet so one is switched and one not), it is better to cut the wire and connect the ends, but in this kind of situation, you may not have the slack to do it. It is awkward to clean the wire and make the U when connected through.

Answer 2

You can do two things. First install it as it was, which is fine, but what we do in the electrical trade is take the feed wire and the wire leaving the box plus a jumper around 10" and strip the ends out and wire nut the 3 together, this way you have your connection and the jumper/pig tail is long enough to conect to the outlet and leave you enough slack to pull the outlet out of the box if you ever have to work on it in the future.

Answer 3

It's a very practical connection because the wire is un-broken at the receptacle connection. If the "device-connection", i.e., where the wire connects to the device terminals, should become defective, the receptacle would be effected but the circuit remains intact because there is no "break" in the wire.

Defective device connections are a very common cause of a "dead" circuit when 4 wires connect to all 4 device terminals.A bad connection will "open" the circuit.