Backstab mess
I was doing some work and discovered one of the switches in a 15 amp lighting circuit was cracked open on one end where the 14 gauge wire was backstabbed in. Checked the remaining switches on that circuit and found 8 of 9 were cracked open, when I replaced them the wire usually just fell out. Even more concerning was that three of the switches had a broken back where a backstab was used with the adjoining screw to carry the hot to another device. I replaced all of the switches and pigtailed the three. Working on replacing every switch then the outlets.
It hard for me to understand why these are allowed, 8 of 9 is horrible failure rate. The switches were 30 years old and we were not experiencing any symptoms. I figured an over zealous assistant broke them by shoving them into the box 30 years ago, but after doing some research it’s sounds like overheating could be the culprit. I wonder if we still had incandescent bulbs if we would have started seeing symptoms?
Surprised these don’t cause more house fires.