5 Biggest DIY Mistakes Wiring a Socket

I love the fact that this is about mistakes allegedly made by DIYers. I have seen all these mistakes and more made by professional electricians in every house I have lived in.

5:57 Heartfelt thanks for freely admitting to being a screwaholic. I do vertical for odd numbered years and horizontal for even ones. I know, I know, there's no hope!

In my experience it's not just DIYers who make some of these mistakes.

Possibly the most educational, technically informative and beneficial 6 minutes of YouTube that I have watched! I now have a far better understanding of where I have gone wrong over the years but better still how to do it right in the future! Thank you!

So glad I aren’t the only one who aligns the screws

I'm a sparky and the number of sparkies I know that are to lazy to put on grommets and who do not earth the back box or use an earth sleeve if they do never ceases to amaze me , furthermore I have seen many a sparky cut the cable so short that it's a real struggle to wire in the back of the socket at all . Truthfully this upload applies equally to DIYers and so called professional electricians who do not take pride in their work .

Thank you for the tip about not twisting the two earth wires together. I never thought about the reason for that.

The only thing I would disagree on is aligning the screw heads, while it is visually nice I feel it is is important to firstly concentrate on tightening them enough, but not overtightening them. If you are focused on lining them both up you could end up either not tightening them quite enough, or overtightening them a bit. A lot of sockets (and switches) come with caps to cover the screw heads anyway.

Nice. With the cost of living going the way it is, a lot of people can't afford to pay an electrician to change a faceplate or replace the integrated led downlight, so videos like these are very useful for the DIYer who wants to tackle these simple jobs themselves and make considerable savings in the process. Keep up the good work.

Great video George. Awesome channel. Glad I’ve found it it’s already helped me out on my home renovation. Cheers.

I always get my wife to test out any electrical work I’ve done. She’s had a few close calls but she’s still alive.

Very helpful video so many thanks. I'm a hobby woodworker and it's regarded as a good finishing touch when all exposed screw heads are aligned.

Why is everyone taking electrical advice off a DIYer? Because he’s absolutely right in everything he said, that’s why 👏🏼 good video dude

Sparky's take: very good video, couple of points though. Dont need to earth a back box so long as it has at least one fixed lug(like your box) boxes with all adjustable lugs must be earthed, however, it will do absolutely no harm to earth all boxes, it will just take longer for no real gain. Dont bother aligning your screw heads, nobody is EVER going to look at it and say "oh your screw heads are all inline". Grommets 👍 Dont twist the cpc 👍 Double back cores when you have a single core in the terminal(dont bother with two or more) 👍 Leave spare length 👍 Wish every DIY socket I came across was like yours 😆

Thank you for your delightfully organised presentation.

Many thanks, great information. I definitely learned something

Really nice. When I was still in the trade, I always aligned by screw heads so I could see instantly, if anyone had played about with my work.

Love this video! Much needed ❤

I agree with everything you said and while it is a good idea to always run the cpc to a metallic backbox - as far as the regs are concerned it is only mandatory when the socket you are installing does NOT have an earthed screw hole at the FIXED backbox lug. Most brands of sockets these days strap both holes (or are fully metallic anyway) so it is usually unnecessary.

Nice tips, thanks for sharing 👍🏿