Wrap electric receptical screws with tape?

[Lynden]

The electricians do it here if the box is metal. 

 +1 -- I do it with metal boxes. It's especially important if there is a mud ring on the box.

[EdL]

If you insist on doing it......use a quality tape instead of the cheap shrit I run across.

That and everything fastened with drywall screws.....like the panel box I'm working in now.


Ed

[Robert Adams]

If you insist on doing it......use a quality tape instead of the cheap shrit I run across.

That and everything fastened with drywall screws.....like the panel box I'm working in now.  


Ed

    I only use good 3m tape for them. The cheap stuff is for temporary uses.

  As for the panel with drywall screws.. Yeah no, I use larger hex headed screws course the only panels I mess with are big 3 phase ones and drywall screws wouldn't think of working there. However the thicker screws that look sort of like drywall screws are usually used for mounting boxes and clips. I figure if one screw in a box is enough to hold my weight then that screw is good for me(I dont use just one per box just stating fastener strength).

[MarkSingleton]

Drywall screws should probably require a license to purchase.
I say that only somewhat facetiously. The previous owner of
our house used them everywhere for all kinds of things. We
have been living here a decade and a half, and I am still finding
them in the most outlandish places. Electrical boxes are just
one. Rrrrrr.

[JTTHECLOCKMAN]

Completely unnecessary and very messy to work with later down the road. I absolutely hate finding that has been done. The tape becomes gooey and sticky after a couple years. Working in the box later on will get that sticky residue all over you, your tools and everything else in the box. The tape will often shrink over time and slide off anyway, exposing what it was intended to protect in the first place. In most cases the terminals could never touch the sides anyway unless the screws came completely out. Taping around switches or receptacles is taken as a sure sign of hack work around here.

Taping over wire nuts is sometimes done for outdoor, conduit or high vibration commercial installations but completely unnecessary for indoor, residential installations. Finding either of these things done in residential work usually means that someone unqualified has been poking around in there.

Nothing wrong with using 14ga wire, assuming it's correctly fused with a 15 amp breaker. I prefer it for all lighting circuits as it's much easier and much less expensive to work with. This is especially true inside many of the lighting fixtures or crowded multi gang switch boxes where box fill can be an issue. Besides that 14 is almost always more than enough for lighting circuits anyway. I never wire receptacles with anything less than 12 gauge wire and 20 amp breakers.

I will disagree with many thing said here especially about quality of electrician.

[iamrfixit1966]

While my observation may not be true in all areas, where I live this is the case. I don't find many pros using tape in these circumstances, in rare instances, but definitely not a common thing. Where I do find tape there always seems to be indications of poor workmanship. Things like cables not properly secured in boxes or panels, more than one wire on a terminal, a short or almost non existent service loop in receptacle/switch boxes, jacketing not stripped back far enough, excess exposed wire at screw terminals, poorly formed loops around the terminals, loose connections. Maybe even the occasional plastic box fastened with drywall screws. Hack work is not too hard to spot.

[Phil Thien]

Where I saw tape, that infuriated me, was stranded wrapped around a screw on a receptacle. Half the strands were out from under the screw, and the receptacle was a super cheap piece of garbage.  I paid for quality work and I got garbage. 

Of course, I didn’t discover any of this till years after the work had been done, when I was removing it as part of a remodel.

[crokett™]

I will disagree with many thing said here especially about quality of electrician.

I've learned it depends on the mindset.  I don't think wrapping with tape indicates quality or not.  A hack is a hack.  He'll hack up the overall electrical job, and if he wraps with tape, it'll be a cheap tape and it will be a mess.  He might be less likely to wrap with tape.  The guy that does quality will use a quality tape and the wraps will be nice and tight.  I personally don't see the need to wrap with tape, other than perhaps in metal boxes which I try not to use.  I've passed electrical inspections here and it is not required by code here.   I've been in the electrical systems of at least a dozen houses over the years and have never seen any wrapped.   At work they seem to do at least 1 large project every year converting old people space to data centers and the like.  I've watched the commercial guys.  They don't wrap with tape either.

[K. L. McReynolds]

Cheap tape is worse than not using it at all.

Good tape will last for years, maybe 10 or more.

I've seen box tape(transparent), duct tape, surgical tape, and painters tape along with electrical.

[lift mechanic 2]

I have always wrapped Scotch Super 33+ around the outlet screws ever sense I got zapped once when I threw the wrong breaker.  
I  was in a hurry to get the job done and did not check for sure the circuit was dead. Only made that mistake once.