How To Wire an Electrical Outlet | 3 Things You Didn't Know | Replacing a Basic Electrical Outlet

Welcome back guys, this is the Tightwad, and I have an electrical outlet here that the top outlet only works intermittently and the bottom outlet works consistently. And this is in my kitchen, so this is on a GFCI run. I think this is the end of run, so meaning there should be only two wires plus a ground wire behind this, but I'm not really sure because I haven't removed this plate yet. So I'm going to tell you everything you need to know about wiring outlets or replacing outlets today. The first step is always to cut the power. So we're going to go down to our electrical panel and cut the power for all the outlets in the kitchen. So I'm going to go do that now and we'll be right back. Locate your main power panel for your home, and your outlet should be clearly labeled here, but you can't always trust the writing. And find the one for kitchen receptacles, it is number 11. So I'm going to come over here on the side and find the odd ones on the left, and I'm going to flip off number 11. Now we'll go test the outlet to make sure that our breaker box was labeled correctly, but we have number 11 turned off. There are a couple of ways that we do need to test and make sure that the power is no longer coming to this outlet. One way is to plug in a lamp or a radio or something you know works and see if it will turn on. Another way is to purchase one of these testers. I'll link them in the description where you can purchase them on Amazon. This is a Klein tester. I'm going to turn it on and notice it says 000. I'm going to plug it in, and if there was power come to this, it would show me the amount of volts here, and then the green light would come on. So I know that there's no power here. Always test both of your outlets because sometimes your outlets are wired independently. A lot of times that happens in homes where a light switch controls one of the outlets so you can use it to turn a lamp on and off by the power outlet. So now that we know we have no power here, where you can go ahead and safely remove this plate. And there's just a short screw in the center. It's usually a flat head, so you need a flat head screwdriver. And all that screw does is hold the plate on, and a lot of times the plate has little plastic pieces that hold the screw in, so you don't need to pull the screw all the way out. It keeps you from losing this screw. Now to remove this outlet from the box, there is a screw on the top and the bottom. You can use a drill for this to make it go a little bit faster, but if you're just replacing one outlet, a lot of times the screwdriver is just as good of an option. One thing we will note while I'm removing these screws that this is a metal box, which is fairly uncommon in my home. Most of my boxes are plastic, but this is a metal box so there are a couple of additional precautions we need to take when working on this outlet. With both of the screws removed, I should be able to pull straight out on this outlet to reveal the wiring. And as I suspected, we only have one black wire, one white wire, and one copper wire. So the black is the hot wire, meaning the power's coming in here. The white is the neutral wire, and then the copper, or the bare wire, is the ground wire. I'm going to go ahead and remove each of these wires and then we'll look at the outlet. The screws holding these wires in will not come all the way out. You just need to loosen them enough to get the coil of wire from around the screw base. So you can see this wire just has a little shepherd's hook on the end of it. We're just going to push it up a little bit and then pull it out from behind that screw terminal. And then do the same thing for the neutral wire and for the ground. There are a couple of things you should look for on the outlet that you're removing. Notice that there is a little tab going between the two brass screws here, and the tab is still intact. That lets me know that the power that was coming into this terminal operates both the top and the bottom outlet. If this was broken off, we would have a hot wire coming in here and here, and they would be independently controlled. One could be switched and one could be always hot. So if you ever want to wire an independent outlet, you would break off the tab here, and that's going to separate the bottom from the top. I purchased two different outlets so that I could show you the differences in some of the different grades and varieties of them. And we're going to start with this one. This is actually the one I'm going to use to replace with, and this one allows for what's called back wiring. So you can see it has little plates behind the screws here, and that allows us to slide a wire straight in without needing the shepherd's hooks, and it clamps it into place. You'll see we have a green screw here. This is for the ground wire. The silver screws, like you see on this side, are for your neutral wires or your white wires. And then your brass screws, brass colored screws, is where your black wire, so B and B. So white goes to neutral, brass goes to black. So just match up the Bs, and you'll always know which side the black wires go to. This one also has the connection between the two. That's standard on outlets. You would need to break that off if you did want to split the top from the bottom circuit. You'll notice this one does not have holes in the back. Some outlets have holes in the back for what's called speed wiring. That's why I purchased this one. You can see these little tiny holes in the back. Some people will say that it's okay to use these. This is where you strip off a little piece of wire and you stick it in there. There's one point in here that holds that wire in place, and every time you plug something into the outlet, it moves a little bit, and in my opinion, it can wiggle these loose. Most electricians will not use the speed wiring option, and they prefer the shepherd's hook style like you just saw, or the back wiring option that we're going to be doing today. So let's get these wires trimmed up, and we will get this back wired. I've had a few different types of wire strippers, and these are my favorites where you strip in front of the joint. There are other ones that the stripping areas are behind this joint right here. I just think these are a little bit easier to use. I'm going to trim off the end of each of these wires. Be careful how much you trim off if you don't have a lot of excess in your box. Before I start stripping the wires, I'm going to check the back of my outlet to see if there's a wire stripping gauge, and there is one on this outlet right here that tells me for back wiring, I need to strip it that far. So if I'm not quite sure how far I need to strip it, I can lay the wire against it here, and I can mark it with my fingernail, and then I can get these wires stripped. I'll do the same thing on the others now that I know how far back it needs to be stripped, and you'll notice that I don't use the strippers to pull the wire casing completely off, and that's because you have a good risk of scarring up your copper whenever you're pulling that off. So now I have a nice clean wire stripped. I know that there's no kinks or gashes in this copper wire, and it's time for me to wire the new outlet. So I'm going to separate my wires a little bit here. The one wire that I do still need the shepherd style hook on is the ground wire, and another thing that these wire strippers come with is a little hole right here in the side, and you can take that little hole and put the wire barely through it, and then you can twist it around, and it's going to give you that little hook that you need. If your wire strippers don't have that little hole in it, you can also use a pair of needle nose pliers and just clamp the end of it and curl it, and that will give you the curl that you need as well. Make sure as you create this little shepherd's hook that you have it going in a clockwise motion the same direction that you're going to be turning the screw to tighten it. So as you screw the screw in tighter, it's just going to make that loop close even more. What you don't want is to be fighting against it and for it to separate that loop and open it up. Now that that part's done, we're going to take the next wire, and it doesn't matter if you do top or bottom. I'm going to do bottom here because my wire is coming in from the bottom, so it gives me a little bit more slack. Now to do the back wiring, I'm going to slide in the wire behind this copper plate. I don't need a hook, and I'm going to do it on the top side of the screw, and I'm going to tighten the screw down clockwise, and what that's going to do is it's going to pull it nice and tight between these two copper plates, so it's connected fully on the top and fully on the bottom. And get that nice and tight so this is properly inserted here. Make sure that you don't have any of your insulation touching the copper plate because that could keep the plate from not closing down securely. Now I'm going to do the same thing on the other side with the hot wire. I'm going to use the bottom again. This time I'm actually going to go in the bottom side because as I tighten, I want it to get tighter and tighter, not looser, and I'm going to go ahead and screw this one down. So now we have successfully back wired our hot, our neutral, and then we've done the shepherd's hook style on the ground. With our wires connected, we do want to go ahead and tighten down all the other screws to give them less chance of sticking out and making contact with the box, and since this is a metal box, we're going to take one additional precaution, but tightening down the screw terminals that aren't being used is a very common suggestion. This next step is not 100% required, but when you're using a metal box as we have today, you don't want any risk of these terminals or these screws coming into contact with the edges of the metal box, so I'm going to wrap electrical tape around it to make sure that doesn't happen. It's just one extra layer of protection, and why not keep your home as safe as possible? I like to take my wires and push them up into the opposite corner from the direction the wire is coming in, so my wire is coming in from the bottom left. I like to push the back side of them up into the top right, and as I push the outlet in, it's going to then flex them back down, which is going to prevent them from having any kinks or really strained curbs. Now we can begin the process of screwing the outlet back into the box. I do recommend that you get one screw started just a little bit, and then work on the other screw, and that ensures that you don't get too far in where the outlet won't go in straight into the box. Before you finish tightening, make sure you straighten that outlet up, ensuring that it's not touching the sides on any part of the box, and then finish tightening your screws down. And the last step before testing is to go ahead and secure the plate on the front. I don't recommend ever leaving the plates off because it just exposes the wires on the back end, and there's always the personal preference of will your screw be horizontal to the floor or perpendicular. Only crazy people leave it twisted like that, or it doesn't line up with anything. So leave a message in the comments saying if you are a perpendicular to the floor, line up with these other slots, or if you're a horizontal to the floor type of installer. Let's go ahead and flip the power back on, and we will test the outlet. With our power turned back on, I'm going to take my outlet tester again and turn it on, and I can plug it in the top one, and we get 123 volts and the green light. And then same thing in the bottom, another 123 volts and the green light. So I hope you learned something today. If you learned any new tips, please post them in the comments section below. If you have any tips for me to do it differently next time, leave them there as well. I do plan on making a full playlist for different scenarios when wiring electrical outlets, and then I'm going to make one that tells you everything you need to know about electrical outlets. So I'm always open for comments and suggestions. So click any of those videos shown on the screen right now, and they'll open right up on your device. And as always, I hope you guys have a great day.