Was dead set against using WAGOs on a house I rewired last month, now I kind of get the hype

I've always twisted and taped everything because that's how old timers taught me, but I finally tried WAGOs on a 12 outlet kitchen circuit in Austin and it saved me like an hour of work. The connections felt solid and held up fine on a 20 amp breaker test. Has anyone else switched over and found a downside I'm missing?

3 comments

3 Comments

paul2512mo ago

Have you tried pulling one out after a few months to see if the wire gets chewed up? That's the thing nobody talks about with WAGOs. I did a service call last year where the homeowner had used them on some outdoor lights and when I pulled one off, the copper had this weird scoring from the spring clip. It wasn't loose or anything but it made me nervous about long term vibration damage. On a kitchen circuit inside the house you're probably fine, but I still don't trust them on anything that gets shaken around like ceiling fans or garage door openers. Just something to keep an eye on if you start using them everywhere.

-1

blake3222mo ago

That scoring thing happens with a lot of push-in connectors, not just WAGOs. It's the same principle as why people still use wire nuts on stuff that vibrates, old school is sometimes safer for the weird edge cases.

ben_nguyen1mo ago

Nah man, just stop using them on anything with vibration. Period. Wire nuts aren't that hard to twist on and they're proven. Why mess with something that chews up copper like that? I'd rather spend the extra 30 seconds and know the connection is solid for decades. Save the WAGOs for light fixtures that never move.