The decline of civilization symbolized in a modern light socket

Recently I was replacing an old socket in a recessed ceiling fixture in our kitchen. The insulation on the wire was very old. Here's what the old socket looked like:

It was coated with gradoo, so I went to the local hardware store and bought a spanking new socket:

When I got home, I discovered that the wires on the socket weren't long enough to make it to the junction box. I couldn't replace the short wires with longer ones because they were riveted to the socket. This is a crappy, user-hostile design. When the wires go bad, you have to throw the entire thing away.

Fortunately, I still had the old light socket, and I had some extra wire, so I was able to rewire the old light socket. Hurray for repairable stuff of yesteryear!

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Mitch

You bought a new one because the old one was dirty? You could have cleaned up the old one with some denatured alcohol on an old toothbrush.
peterbruells

About the pre-WWII remark: You people do realize that only he best-made (or unused) stuff of that time remained and that all the crap they bought and sold back then is gone? Remember: It’s only a classic because it stood the test of time, not just while it’s old. Otherwise, pyramids would be the pinacle of architecture.
- Ito Kagehisa
  
  Well, yes, Peter, that’s part of my point. If it’s just failed now and it was built prior to WWII, you should restore rather than replace it, because it has proven itself in the only way that matters… survival of the fittest.
  
  But it’s also true that modern “advances” in manufacturing are frequently ways to save on production costs, and have nothing to do with providing a better product to the consumer. Capitalism only works perfectly when the consumer is perfectly informed, and most people have never learned anything regarding (for instance) the significance of replaceable washers and seats in faucet designs.
Mark Frauenfelder

Thanks for the advice, everyone! What a kindly bunch of folks you are, and so generous. I’m going to rewire the socket correctly now.
Anonymous

Remember to always wrap clockwise around the screw.
nutbastard

word to everyone who suggested splicing some extra wire in and using shrink tube. it’s the best solution for what is one of the most common problems, and it’s also extremely cheap and easy to do.

i cringed when i read this:

“I couldn’t replace the short wires with longer ones because they were riveted to the socket. This is a crappy, user-hostile design.”

yeah because everyone knows that you can’t cut wires : \
Ito Kagehisa

You’re welcome, Mark! I’d help you out with plumbing and wiring if you lived over here on the right coast.
sea_biscuit

I live in a late 1920s Hollywood apt. building constructed with all the requisite heavy gauge copper electrical wiring (and I mean solid 1/8th inch copper wire that you need a heavy pair of pliers to even bend!) and actual 4x4s. I’ve often been impressed by the lasting robustness of the hardware they used then. As it was explained to me, back then they weren’t quite sure what the load tolerances were for electrical wiring, so they went in with the heavy stuff. They were worried that fires would start as a result of tenants plugging in various and sundry devices.

Anyway, except for the wiring insulation that basically crumbles in your fingers, the original hardware has proved to be impressively robust and I’ve rewired just about every outlet and light socket in the place using the original fixtures. You almost need a metal press to bend those copper wires though! Don’t even get me started on a friends place whose walls are filled with actual horse hair as insulation. Another 1920s innovation. Times have changed.
Anonymous

If the wire is too short then splice in another wire, optionally solder, and cover with shrink wrap or that brush on plastic stuff. You might try wire nuts or even a terminal block.

I hate to tell you this but those screws were put there by a low paid very unfortunate person working in a toxic environment. Think about that next time you disrespect rivets.
Anonymous

When making the loops, it’s better not to create an overlap under the screw head. When tightened, you either have incomplete contact or strands severing each other, leading to a connection that is actually much weaker than no loop at all.
Anonymous

If using that old socket you should also use some ring terminals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faston#Blade_connector

This will make the connection eaiser to do with the screws and less chance of any arcing from a stray wire and cause a fire.
badc0ffee

Knob-and-tube wiring is dangerous if:
1. You don’t leave enough air space within the wall for the wire to dissipate heat while under load
Or 2. You use the wrong fuses, or worse, short your fuses
Or 3. Your wiring contains junctions not in an accessible junction box, which was common when K&T wiring was still being installed.

If you’re living anywhere except the west coast you probably need a decent amount of heating or air conditioning, and you’ll want to insulate your exterior walls. That can cause problem 1. Problem 3 is also a likely problem unless you’ve had your wiring inspected.
jonathan_v

Those are there on purpose, and its not about being cheap – its about the manufacturer actually trying to help you and be responsible.

People are generally sloppy and idiots, especially lackluster DIY folk and cheap contractors — they end up creating shorts trying to screw threaded wire , or make a loose connection that easily slips off the nut. The best way to handle things is with some sort of crimped connector – like you see welded in place above. But people screw those up removing and installing , and most folks don’t have crimpers to put a new connector on.

So the manufacturers permanently attach the wire leads in there, and ship the units with plenty of extra wire hanging off them. Then you can easily, quickly, and safely use a “screw on wire connector” to connect into your wall’s wiring. When you need to replace, just yank the connector off, and trim a bit if needed.

If you do an online search for a wire connector, you’ll see what it looks like — usually like a ridged traffic cone / glue bottle cap.
adamnvillani

Peterbruells – the scary thing about the cheaply-built postwar tract housing is that now it’s 60-year-old cheaply-built tract housing.
Anonymous

Mark-The white and black wires are reversed! You could get a terrible shock while changing a bulb. The black wire is hot (live) and needs to be connected to the center contact, NOT the outer ring.
normd

I understand why the riveted socket is built that way, but am darn glad to see you restore the old one to service. Aesthetics and all that.
VagabondAstronomer

I drive a 22 year old Volvo 240 wagon for this very reason; you can repair it far easier than anything built in the past decade. I also have a Tandy Model 102 laptop that is bullet proof for basic writing. Keep diggin’ the ol’ stuff…
wsst1000

I have a light socket with a pull string. It hangs up all the time. I have to pull it again and again to get it to turn off or on. Until I got this socket (and the one that malfunctioned the same way that I bought before this one) I had never had such a socket fail, even the 80 year old one in my garage works perfectly.
Anonymous

toothpaste and an old toothbrush would have done it

hurrah for fixable stuff
andygates

#16 is why they’re riveted now: “I did kinda a neat job but made a mistake, but hey, it’ll probably be okay…”

Remove the user, remove user error. ;)
Anonymous

Decline of civilization indeed. I still use my old analog computer from the fifties to browse the Web. Those things last forever, and none of that new microcircuitry to fail.
eander315

As someone pointed out earlier, I think the decline in technically capable end users is the cause of this particular problem. The BoingBoing readership clearly doesn’t fall into that category, but I can’t think of a single person I know who would even attempt to rewire a bulb socket.
imorgan73

Two recent examples of why the throw-away mentality is winning in Australia:
- We blew out the tires on the dolly we use around the brewery. It cost $50 each to replace the inner tubes and tires. A new dolly costs $35
- Had to replace the wiper blades. A replacement bit of rubber to go in the existing wiper holder thingo cost $14. An entirely new wiper holder thingo cost $13 despite involving a fair bit of metal and plastic.
Anonymous

there’s some guy out there with a drill stand who’s got the brass tubing
can make those rivets and has a bleeding soul due to the mobile phone
pricing
Stefan Jones

Agreed about the sucky design.

But I would have cleaned up those contacts and screws. A few minutes with the little wire brush wheel of a Dremel type tool would have done the trick.
Anonymous

it’s a scam. it’s so you would buy another one
Anonymous

It’s tough to see in this photo, did you remember to make the appropriate loop around the screw before tightening it?
Ghede

Behold! The age of obsolescence! They discovered that things that were built better, needed replacing less often. So began the decline of human civilization. Watch as we see the same principle applied to future prosthetics. (I mean, you don’t want anyone trying to repair their own pacemaker, but maybe an arm.)

“Oh, your pinky actuator is out? Mmm. Sorry, proprietary components. You will have to mail it in to the service center, and cover the shipping and handling. We’ll try and get it back to you in 6-8 weeks.”
Anonymous

good for you
IWood

Splice. Solder. Shrink tube. Ta-da! Longer wires on the new socket.

See, it’s not really bad design, it’s just an encouragement to expand your skillset. And buy the stuff you need to use your new skills. And take more time to do a simple job.

*pfoo*
CANTFIGHTTHEDITE

Or just use some crimps and sockets, or the twist-on connectors, inside a junction box. Just don’t hide that junction box. Not sure if this light socket would still meet code, but I’ll leave that for a licensed electrician to determine.
Anonymous

wire nuts?
Anonymous

… pretty sure it’s best to wire the ‘hot’ lead to the center post of the socket and let the screw collar carry the common.
4649

“It was dirty so I bought a new one.”
tsk, tsk.
zio_donnie

it’s probably a cheap plug. most decent sockets have screws for existing wires, not riveted wires on them (though you could solder some extra wire if you had to, i guess). i hate rivets.
Anonymous

hey sparky – u should really clean those contacts & wrap the wire clockwise at least 1/2 way around the screw; you have so little wire in contact it can arc, spark & heat up. Bad things man!
Anonymous

Mark,
If you had routed the white wire to the right of the screw instead of to the left then it would be tensioned as you tightened.
Anonymous

More power to you for reusing the old one, but those connections make me cringe.

When putting wires into one of those screw connections you should make a hook out of the strands then wrap the hook around the screw in such a way that when you tighten it will pull the hook in. You can see a light hook in the original wiring.
Just putting it straight in is a weak connection that’s more likely to fall out when handling or if the wire gets tugged on later.
Dual

I don’t honestly have the time to see if this obvious point has been covered yet, but you were sold the wrong socket. There are many, many types, and they aren’t all in every hardware store.

Your problem has -nothing- to do with the issues mentioned. It’s like buying a Ford distributor for a Chevy and blaming the results on shoddy worksmanship.

Search the net for a while: lamp parts mfrs, distributors, vendors. I did, just a few months ago on a project like this and got just what I needed. Hardware store didn’t have it.
Anonymous

How dangerous is it if you have to occasionally tap around on a lamp bulb to have it turn back on? The lamp fell and the socket is a bit loose. Just really don’t feel like buying yet another cheap lamp however would prefer to around to see in 2011.
asuffield

To be fair, you can still buy decent ones. Even in your local hardware store. Don’t buy the cheap parts, they’re for ignorant people.
inness

I never heard the word “gradoo” until I moved to Acadiana, aka Louisiana south of I-10. I always thought it was a regional word. The meaning’s identical to how you use it, though. Closeted Cajun?
Anonymous

Ok So why did you not use wire nuts to patch the “too short wire” it seems that while the socket was badly made, you where also inflexible.
kinetix

Haroun, as an apprentice electrician I can assure you that heat-shrinking and burying wire is not permitted in residential or industrial installations in the US or Canada. Junctions must be made in boxes designed for the purpose, and those boxes must be accessible.

I’m in Canada, the relevant chapter of our code is 12 in the subsection regarding boxes and raceways.
soupisgoodfood

Surely you can still buy ones with screws? If so, then it’s just more choice — I don’t see what the big deal is.
tomboing

Nice example of old-beats-new.
Anonymous

I’m not 100% happy with your completed wiring. IMO the wires should be bent in a U shape and screwed onto the socket so they wrap onto the screws.
Mark Frauenfelder

Thanks for the tips. I did put loops in them, but I made the loop in the wrong direction for the white wire.
Anonymous

i recently had similar feeling about power supplies whic i tried to summarize in this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KokFxLqFaWY

but in short, why can’t our power supplies go back to screw terminals or speaker style connections?

probably because of corporations and lawyers… but certainly we can do better?
Mark Frauenfelder

“Ok So why did you not use wire nuts to patch the “too short wire” it seems that while the socket was badly made, you where also inflexible.”

Because if I used wire nuts, they wouldn’t fit through the conduit.
Anonymous

Whilst I would also usually re-use old components where possible, as illustrated in some of the comments above, I think this is actually an example of user-friendly design for 99% of users – I.e. the sub-optimal rewiring of the white wire (I’m being slightly uncharitable, and I’d do no better!)

True it may possibly waste more resources, and make the end product less repairable, but I’d rather that 1,000,000 light sockets where replaced in a country than a whole house where burnt down with possible loss of life.

(Obviously I’m generalising across a medium sized population here, and have absolutely no figures to back up this finger in the air statistic).
Dual

(Addendum) Not to say that contemporary parts like this can’t be crappy: worst are lamp sockets with switches- 3/ways in particular. We have local lamp restoration shop that sells 50- and 60-year old sockets taken from old lamps, and when I need a replacement, I go there.
Derek C. F. Pegritz

JUGAAD! That’s the spirit.
nixiebunny

http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ibeCCtpItmDspRte.jsp?item=102469&section=10183

That is the one with screws – model number 9350 instead of 8101. But Leviton’s search page sucks. It took me 10 minutes of valuable Internet time to find that.
Drhaggis

If the wires were a few centimeters longer, one wouldn’t have noticed that civilization was in decline.

Also of note, the insulation quality has improved over time, meaning that these wires would last much longer than the ones being replaced.
Ito Kagehisa

The decline of civilization would have been better symbolized by your using the new socket, despite it being inferior.

As the proud owner of a 180+ year old house (that was once a factory) I spend a fair amount of time cleaning up these old fixtures to be good as new. If necessary, I cut new brass and copper bits to the old forms and tap them for the old screws. But it’s rarely necessary to do much to anything built prior to WWII.

A toothbrush and comet cleanser will remove the grunge and show the superior finish glaze on that old socket.
guavajellyfish

I never thought I would see someone with a name like “Frauenfelder” use the word gradoux. I thought it was a Cajun word– maybe as a Cajun I have just de-normalized external culture? Are we as an ethnic group less special than I thought previously? Please tell me– where did you learn that word? I am very interested to know. Any etymologists here want to delve into “gradoux/gradoo” for me?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  I thought it was a Cajun word
  
  I’ve heard it used up and down California since the 70s. In other non-news, shampoo is Hindi in origin.
Teller

User-hostile design – well spoke, Mark.
Anonymous

I call this one more example of Whippo Crappo – There is no pride in making things any more. It’s just about making the most money for least amount of work and supplies. This applies to workmanship, too. I had a carpenter, or so I thought, put about 15 electric plugs in my house. Upside down. He also entombed my cat in the tub surround and had to take down the tiles to get her out. Dumb.
- CastanhasDoPara
  
  @ 64 Anon. By “upside-down” do you mean that the ground pin is on the top? If so that is actually code now. Still not 100% sure why but the best explanation I’ve gotten (from an actual electrician) is that it prevents shorts in the event that some bit of conductor material falls across the contacts (if the plug is not properly and fully inserted into the socket). If not then never mind. Still the entombed cat thing is pretty stupid.
eric schrepel

Don’t get me started about why I love electrical supplies (almost everything always fits everything else), and why I hate plumbing, especially at the fixture-level. Really folks, must there be like 5 different thread possibilities and a million washers and only specific connectors that attach hose XYZ to sink faucet ABC?
CosmicMonkey

Rock the old shitz, yo.

My friend just bought a house and her door chime sounded like a hundred electrocuted monkeys shrieking, but only after she putzed around with wire that was wrapped in some kind of fabric. Anybody know about that? Old house wiring with fabric insulator? What the hell.
- Anonymous
  
  old houses have tons of cloth-wrapped wiring. i had a doorbell with this stuff in my 100-yr old house
Anonymous

I don’t know if it is really a fair comparison. The old socket probably cost a relatively significant amount more than the new one when adjusted for inflation. If people were still willing to spend that much money, the manufacturer would gladly use screws. This is a clear indicator that the market is working correctly. The new socket uses the minimum amount of materials and labor which fit the need for the majority of users. The fact that you were even able to find a replacement receptacle that could have been made to work is a testament to market economics. If you’d been in rural Africa, where “the markets” are largely broken, you’d be trying to fashion something out of aluminum cans.

BTW, when attaching wires to aluminum cans, make sure you strip enough insulation and bend the wire into a little U. :)
Anonymous

Came to the comments to make sure someone had warned you about the fire danger of those connections. Put a loop in the wire, and MAKE THEM TIGHT! I am an electrician and the number one sign of homeowner work is loose connections with unnecessarily small contact area. Fix er up!
Bentcorner

You bought the wrong product. What you bought is intended to be used by an electrician doing a new install. If all you wanted to do was replace the wire, you should have bought a spool of wire. If the wire going to the socket was bad, guaranteed there’s other wire in the home that should be replaced too.

Old wiring with poor installation is not something to mess around with.
badc0ffee

The wire wrap + solder suggestion is bad. Do not solder 120V house wiring! Arc alert! If you have to splice, use wire nuts, and make sure all splices are 100% inside the metal junction box.

As others have said, you can still buy light sockets with screw-on connectors. Next time you’ll know to avoid cheap parts.
- IWood
  
  (hrrrm, I was being deliberately dim, but it didn’t occur to me that someone might actually do that, so yeah…soldering AC wiring bad, don’t do it)
- Anonymous
  
  believe it or not, i have two home electrical books that recommend solder splices in 120-V.
  
  from “electrical code simplified: residential”, (c) 1987 P.S. Knight (based on 15 edition canadian code and BC amendments):
  
  “Solder- This is probably the best possible method of splicing circuit conductors…non-corrosive paste…50/50 solder….Then apply scotch electrical tape. Build up a layer of tape equal to the insulation thickness of the conductor…be sure to melt solder on wire….Caution- Do not solder bonding conductors-crimp-on type may be used.”
- Anonymous
  
  If he can solder, he can figure to turn off the power to the circuit. Do you think he was working live when he pulled the socket and wiring in the first place?
  
  As to the rivets, they aren’t a bad idea. Light sockets have a tendency to get hot when the light is on, and cool when the light goes off. Enough cycles of hot/cold along with insufficiently torque to the threads plus tension from the wire itself can cause screws to back themselves out, allowing the bare wire end to disassociate itself from the fixture. That would be bad. Running the wire end 360 (or more) around the screw doesn’t make it better, as the actual contact with the screw head is actually less than a more traditional 270 (3/4 way around the screw).
  - Ito Kagehisa
    
    As to the rivets, they aren’t a bad idea. Light sockets have a tendency to get hot when the light is on, and cool when the light goes off. Enough cycles of hot/cold along with insufficiently torque to the threads plus tension from the wire itself can cause screws to back themselves out, allowing the bare wire end to disassociate itself from the fixture.
    
    I hope you don’t actually believe this happens.
    - Haroun
      
      Having dismantled numerous light fixtures in my work I’ve come across more than a few w/loose wires. Hot cold cycles, little people, magic, or whatever. The rivets will hold longer than the bolted connections. Old is not necessarily better. It may be more easily repairable, but it isn’t always. This kind of work, done improperly, can kill. Something I think about every time I leave a clients house after having done anything with the electrical system
      Knob & tube wire junctions are all soldered, so I disagree w/the guy saying a solder joint on 120v will arc. & I’ve seen an electrician solder, heatshrink, & bury a wire & say that was a practice approved of by the Electrical Code.
      - Ito Kagehisa
        
        Haroun, I must respectfully disagree.
        
        I was once a blackleg electrican, and although I have certainly seen some poorly secured screw-type connections I have also seen these cheesy thin rivets fail due to corrosion or bad set. In my own experience, screws last longer. I do not believe they unscrew themselves in normal operation, either; temperature ratings of wire and connectors take normal thermal expansion and contraction into account. Temperature is a major factor in electrical design, and I believe it is the reason soldering is not allowed in home wiring; wires are required to remain mechanically fastened at temperatures that would melt solder and tape.
        
        Further, none of the knob and tube wiring on my property (which I have entirely replaced with THWN solid core in EMT) was soldered. It was all mechanically joined or straight runs. Between buildings it was entirely uninsulated. I have never seen soldered KnT although I have seen (and ripped out) illegal soldered romex.
        
        One place where we agree is that “old is not necessarily better”. The older it is, the more likely it is to be better, due to natural selection, but it’s not something that should be taken for granted.
Mark Frauenfelder

“I hate plumbing, especially at the fixture-level.”

Amen. I hate faucet handles that turn clockwise to open. Unfortunately, we have some like that in our house.
CosmicMonkey

Hmmm. I think plumbing is very interesting.
- Gilbert Wham
  
  That’s because you haven’t been elbow-deep in enough shit.
OntarioJer

Umm, I may be wrong, and I can’t tell for sure from this photo, but you should double check this. It appears from the that the identified conductor(white wire) is going to the centre pin while the hot conductor(black) is going to the shell(screwy part) if so, this is wrong, and dangerous.
bpratt

@cosmicmonkey#26: that’s probably what’s called “knob and tube” wiring (each wire is in its own little fabric sheath, right?). Some folks freak out when they see it but it’s just fine if you don’t mess with it. If you do mess with it, best to just replace it with modern stuff.

Old houses are cool! That old gear always need fixing but you can actually fix it.

Funny story: a friend told me that when his friend’s Greek grandmother came to visit Seattle, she was shocked at all the wooden houses. Her comment was “I bet they don’t even last 100 years!”.
webmonkees

So which part illustrates this, the ‘if the new one breaks, you have to replace it’ versus ‘the old one was dirty, so I got a replacement?’

As an owner of many obsolete technologies (where you can’t go to the hardware store for a crappier modern version), I would have used some contact cleaner and a wire brush on all those bits, make them shine, then reassembled.

Otherwise the electrons get stopped up on the way, then you have to use a electron plunger on the socket when the lights dim..
Phanatic

So let me get this straight. You went out to buy a shiny new light socket instead of a functional-but-dirty one, didn’t notice before you bought it that it had lengths of wire pre-riveted on, and thus would require you to use wire nuts to connect it, which would not fit through the conduit you were using. Then when you went back to the old, functional-but-dirty one, you did it wrong. You claim you did loop the wire, just in the wrong direction, but there are no loops in your ‘after’ photo, you’ve just got a few strands of wire from each conductor laying straight under the terminal, which is horrible technique. You’ve also got the hot wire going to the shell of the socket and the neutral going to the center pin, which is opposite of the way it’s supposed to be hooked up and is *dangerous*, because it’s a lot easier to touch the shell than it is to touch the center pin when you’re feeling around in a dark room trying to screw in a new light bulb.

Maybe companies started switching to pre-riveted wires instead of screw terminals because of all the people out there who can’t manage a task as simple as wiring a light socket.
- Steiny
  
  “You claim you did loop the wire, just in the wrong direction, but there are no loops in your ‘after’ photo…”
  
  Of course there are. The black wire is coming down the right hand side, looping once clockwise around the terminal under the screw head and the few visible strands protruding to the right again. The white wire is hard to see directly, but I can perceive how it’s doing a counterclockwise loop under the screw head. Mark’s already acknowledged that he did this one incorrectly so as to un-tighten as the screw is turned, but the loop is under there.
- Ernunnos
  
  And here I thought the warning on my airline peanuts letting me know the were packaged in a facility processing peanuts was a sign of the end. A guy complaining about consumer-proofing even as he demonstrates why it’s necessary tops even that.
Alessandro Cima

I agree that on the surface and for those few minutes of cutting wire to splice a longer one together, this new socket seems inferior to the old one. But I suspect that the new design saves lives in the long run for obvious reasons.
bravestarr

i’m sure it’s been mentioned, but i’ve wired up many sockets with non-rivet designs. look a little harder before you buy.
Phanatic

cosmicmonkey:

Older houses use knob-and-tube wiring, which predates Romex. It’s solid wire, not stranded, and uses ceramic standoff knobs along lengths of run and ceramic tubes when it passes through holes in joists and such. Interwire connections were twisted together, and then soldered. The stuff lasts forever, unless it burns down the house, but if you’re going to screw with it at all, you’re best off ripping out the circuit and replacing it with Romex; it is a giant messy pain in the tuckus to do work on.
MrsBug

Well, looks like our house. 80 year old wiring in much of it. Rewired our dining room ceiling with an original type fixture I got at a flea market (Dad helped me test it) and the wires in the ceiling are so dirty it was hard to tell the white from the black.
Anonymous

@anon Regarding upside-down electric sockets: I had a house like that too. It seems that sometimes outlets are installed with the ground connector up with the idea that if the plug is not all the way in and something falls down across the plug it is better if it falls on the ground pin rather than across the hot and neutral. I can understand that as twice I’ve had that happen (a coat hanger and a cheap necklace, both of which tripped the breaker just as you’d expect). However, the guys who install these evidently don’t have cell phone chargers, light timers, X10 controllers, nightlights or any of the wide variety of things that hang from properly oriented outlets.
bpratt

webmonkees electron plunger reminds me of James Thurber’s grandmother, who hhad “the horrible suspicion that electricity was dripping invisibly all over the house” from empty light sockets.
ackpht

The electrical system in my house (built 1954) could best be described as “quaint”, with 60-amp service, so that you could run the air conditioner or the refrigerator, but not both. I had this fixed before I moved in.

There was one telephone jack in the entire house, located directly behind the refrigerator.
forgeweld

“It’s a poor workman as blames his tools.” (Or that blames the hardware that he bought that didn’t suit the job. Decline of civilization indeed-blaming everything but the source of the problem-your own inexperience.
Anonymous

To be a little more fair, he IS wiring the socket up exactly how it was. (white to white, black to black)
Anonymous

I didn’t notice anyone mention it yet, so: when wiring to screw lugs, don’t overlap the wire. The point where the wire crosses itself is thicker than the rest of the wire and creates uneven compression of the strands and a point of greater stress. It’s a bigger deal and more obvious when working with solid wire, but applies both ways.
Roy Trumbull

Two years ago I had a classic case of a bulb base welding itself to the socket. If there is resistance from a bulb being a little loose, that can happen. Often the glass will separate from the base and it’s hell to get out. This was a hanging lamp and taking it apart and replacing the socket was nearly an all day job. I should hope as new light sources are developed we can abandon the Edison base. We’ve only been using it for 110 years.
Phanatic

#37 –

Roy: If the bulb breaks off at the neck, go get a potato and cut it in half. Jam the potato down onto the broken neck, you’re trying to fill the socket with potato. Then twist. Turn the power off first, of course.

The Edison base is far superior to a number of alternatives that I’ve seen in use. You should see some of the crap that gets used in low-voltage lighting.
- mn_camera
  
  Or just disconnect it from the wall (MANDATORY!) and don a pair of leather work gloves over a spread-out old newspaper.