Code does not recognize twisting ground wires together as an approved method of terminating numerous ground wires. Wire nuts are good as are crimp sleeves. You are correct, each device requires an equipment ground connection as does the box.

 

I daresay 99.9 % of the multiple grounds are wire nutted in current practice. I have a Buchanan crimper but if I gave it to an electrician under age 40, they probably wouldn't know what to do with it. :smile:

I've seen some older residential work boxes with grounds just twisted together and often wonder why they thought that was good.

 

I had my own way of doing and teaching how to handle grounding the box while taking advantage of the opportunity of passing along some information to the next man.

I always took the ground wire from the home run (or the incoming in an intermediate box) and immediately wrapped it around the box ground screw, pinched it with my lineman pliers so it was under almost all of the washer head ground screw, tightened it down and then dressed it on up and out the face of the box about 8" and cut it off. Then any other grounds could be twisted to this one and nutted off.

Years later when going back on remodels of our own work, it helped a lot to be able to quickly id the home run (or incoming feed) in some box that was being reconfigured. I doubt it was ever code legal.

 

Forgot about the wire nut. I've used the regular wire nut on twisted grounds but not the green one.

 

From my experience most contractors use crimp sleeves . Smaller, cheaper and faster than wire nuts.

 

That has been my experience also. I still use crimp sleeves, takes up less room in the box than wire nuts or Wagos. The only fault with sleeves is that rework is more difficult.

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My experience is in commercial work, I never did see crimp sleeves used there. I did some residential work years ago when first dabbling in the trade (50's) but it was a different world back then. I figured everyone had moved away from that method.

 

Different areas of the country use different methods. Worked in lumber Mills in Idaho and they used set screw splice caps.

 

I had forgotten about those! I used some of them way back when. I lived in a small town when I first started doing electrical work so I was stuck with whatever the local hardware store handled. Being completely ignorant, I figured what they handled was the standard of the industry.

Those were the days, as is often said. There was a time when black friction tape was called electricians tape. Then the newfangled PVC stuff came on the market. Pretty soon the NEC code changed and they started selling Romex with a bare wire in it!!! Holy guacamole!! We all shook our heads and wondered what they would think of next. If we only knew. :biggrin2:

It has been a fun ride even though electrical work was never my prime career. Commercial refrigeration was my favorite pursuit and knowing electrical was a necessity since most electricians weren't familiar with the control circuits and needed guidance. Generally the electrician would just ask how many wires and what color I needed and pull them in and let me land them.

 

Might be dating myself but I remember finding splices that were soldered and wrapped with friction tape. I still work with a lot of knob and tube.