How Tight To Tighten Romex HELP

[Michael Roback]

I noticed that in a couple of boxes that I ran romex I tightened the romex
down with the clamp through the knockout fairly tight. In fact the both
screws went all the way though and the clamp was tight against the romex. I
took it apart to look at it and the romex looks squished but the jacket is
not ripped in any way. Is this OK? I don't suppose that I could have
damaged the wiring inside. I am new to using romex! It is hard to know how
tight to tighten as the screw just keeps on tightining down.

[Gfretwell]

You just want them snug. They don't have to be "swing from the wire" tight. It
really has more to do with sealing up the hole in the box than holding the wire
anyway. Once the walls are sealed up the wire shouldn't be disturbed all that
much.

[Bob M.]

I managed to tighten a clamp down on some #6-3 cable from my new generator.
Made it a lot more than just "snug" and decided I didn't want the wire to
move at all. Naturally the only point of failure was the clamp. It went
right through the black outer jacket, displaced the insulation on the red
wire, and shorted it right to ground, just like it should. Fortunately the
generator detected the fault while attempting to build its output voltage,
and it shut itself down. Rather embarassing. Took a few layers of electrical
tape and things worked fine after that.

So, Yes Virginia, you CAN make them too tight.

Bob M.
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