Transcript for:
Guide to Replacing Electrical Outlets Safely

hello Sean of all trades here today we are going to be replacing an electrical outlet this is a relatively easy task but it's important that you do it safely so you don't get 240 volts flying through your body I've never had it happen to me but I imagine it's no fun for this job you're going to need a replacement Outlet some wire cutters a flathead screwdriver some wire strippers some pliers possibly a Philips Ed screwdriver and some kind of electrical dad to plug in and check whether or not you have power to the outlet this electrical outlet works but as it's gotten older it's gotten kind of loose and when you put a two-prong plug in there it sort of flops around and wants to fall out and that's not safe because you don't want parts of plugs exposed when electricity is running through them so I thought I would replace it the first thing you're going to need to do is turn off the power at the breaker box if you don't know which breaker corresponds to which Outlets or which lights in your house you're going to have to do the test turn one off run around see if the power still on run back turn it back on when I moved in here I had no idea which Outlets any of these Breakers went to I have one here the controls the kitchen one of the living room outlets and the back porch fortunately I know that the guest room is controlled by this one now that I've got the power turned off at the breaker box I want to make absolutely sure that there's no juice coming coming through this plug so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put a light in here that I know Works turn it on nothing just to be safe let's try the bottom one nothing we're ready to proceed first things first you want to take off the switch cover this is what you use your slotted screwdriver for this comes off real easy this thing is broken we're going to H switch cover the outlet is held in by two Flathead screws one on the top one on the bottom we're going to unscrew these once those screws are undone you want to pull the outlet out of the wall now that I've got the socket out of the wall I need to remove the white wires the black wires and the ground wire from the back of the socket this socket has the wires embedded into the back and there are quick release points where supposedly you're supposed to be able to put a screwdriver in here push down the quick release point and pop the wire out this thing is so old been sitting here for so long that these things have fused it is not coming out no matter how hard I press so we got to go to our wire cutters take your wire cutters get up in there and snip it off as close to the outlet as you can the ground wire is just screwed into the bottom so undrew undo undo the screw a couple of turns and this guy should come right off now you have two black wires those are your hot wires two white wires and a ground since we cut these we're going to need to strip some of the insulation off I have this very handy wire stripping tool so I'm going to scrip strip off about a/4 inch of insulation off of each one this outlet that I'm replacing the old one with is a little bit different you can see it has two screws on either side if you read the back of the outlet it will say hot wire and white wire the hot wire is the black one the white wire is the white one so what you're going to do is take your pliers and on each of these wires grab the end of the wire and make a little hook around this Hook is going to wrap around the screw now that you have your wires made into little hooks make sure you know which side you're attaching them to hot wire goes on this side so Loop one wire around the screw take your screwdriver and tighten that screw down good and firm if you've stripped your wires too much you'll see you've got too much be wire you don't want any be wire extending past this screw if you stripped it too much cut a little bit off the end of the stripped wire so that you only have insulation coming off the back of this Outlet there's one I'm going to double check make sure I'm attaching to the right side white wire okay don't be afraid to screw these down really hard now I have my white wires and my black wires attached it's time to reattach my ground wire this goes to the green screw on the bottom of the outlet okay all your wires are attached ground is on and you're going to stuff these back into the pocket line your screws up now that that screwed in we have a nice new wall plate to replace my busted up nasty old one oo nice let's turn the power back on see if it works power's back on Moment of Truth as you can hear my printer just came back on hey look at that we have power and now my little two prong plugs aren't going to come flat out of here and electrocute the dog R walks past there you go that's how you replace a electrical outlet it's pretty easy job but the most important thing is you have to make sure the power is all the way off before you start doing it or else a very easy job can get very dangerous and you're going to take a trip to the hospital I hope you enjoyed this video and keep watching Sean of all trades for more how-to videos what do you think give us a keiss