Need up to 30 seconds to load.
hey what's up you guys it's Scott with
everyday home repairs and today we are
going to talk about how to wire and some
of the common issues that people run
into when they're wiring standard
electrical outlet first up is always
safety when dealing with any sort of
electrical system and that is to make
sure you're cutting power to the box by
hitting your circuit breaker or pulling
the fuse and then also basic tools so
the basic tool that should be in your
toolbox before doing a project like this
would be a voltage tester this one's
made by Cline tools I've had it for
years it's awesome so it just as a basic
detector and then this one's nice
because it has a small light which come
in comes in pretty handy when you're
cutting power and maybe cutting the
lights to area where now you can see
what you're working on so I'll give a
link in the description of this exact
one but there's many in the market that
will do the job but you really need one
does before jumping in so maybe you just
bought a new home and you're doing a
project for the first time or you just
need a refresher so let's get you
acquainted and get your bearings to a
standard outlet the first sign is going
to be your hot side and that's going to
be denoted by these brass screw
terminals you'll also see black is the
predominant wire color for hot but if
it's a switched outlet or receptacle you
might also see red coming into the side
one other thing to know if this is a
switched outlet so if one side is always
hot and the other is actually controlled
by a light switch you'll see this
commonly in homes with lighting that is
not overhead so you have to turn on and
off a lamp you do need to remove this
connector here so then you could wire in
black to one side always hot and red
coming from your slip your sorry your
switch to the other side and then those
will independently operate this
connector here connects them both
together and that's okay for a common
circuit so you can just connect hot
one side and it will it will operate
both the top and bottom plug but again
if you have a switched outlet
you're going to need to remove that tab
then that tab it's easy enough to remove
you just need some needlenose pliers and
you can wiggle it back and forth and
remove you only need to remove that from
the hot side the other side you have
silver and green so silver is going to
go to your white or neutral wire and
then your bear or common wire will go to
your green then the only other thing
you're going to see the small slot will
correspond to the hot side and the brass
terminals and the larger slot will be on
your neutral side so a common question
or what you'll see when you jump into
some of these boxes in your house is its
inconsistent how much people strip in
terms of insulation from the wire before
they connect to the screw terminals and
just know that most outlets these days
do come with these pushpins where you
could strip the insulation off and then
press the copper in to the outlet and
there's a small retainer here that would
hold it and then you do need to press
that to release it that is not
recommended and in some places that's
actually against code and that's because
that's just going to be a weaker point
of the outlet and could be a failure
mode in the future so it's always
recommended to go to the screw terminals
once it's shown to you which many people
don't know is there actually is a strip
gauge built into pretty much any outlet
that you'll see so what you need to do
is just line up your wire insulation
kind of mark that with your fingernail
or a marker and that's how much you need
to strip off another common tool is wire
strippers so this is where you match up
to in this case it's 14 gauge wire and
then that's how I'm getting the correct
amount of wire to strip
so two different ways on how to get a
nice loop here that's appropriate size
for the screw terminal if you do have
the wire strippers you can pass the
copper just through this hole here and
then wrap that around the outside and
that's going to give you a nice loop and
you can just tighten that up a little
bit and then you're ready to go or
another way if you don't have the wire
strippers you can take let's say these
are needlenose pliers you can grip the
copper wire and just wrap it around the
pliers to get your loop all right now
with our wire and the loop we'll go
ahead and place that around the screen
terminal and then I'm going to set it
against there's this little retainer
here that really holds that insulation
well so I'm going to set that against
the retainer and then we'll go ahead and
secure down the terminal okay and really
that's there's not much to it right but
this is exactly what you're looking for
the wire is secured against this
retainer here and you can see you have
copper all the way around connected to
that brass terminal with no insulation
between the terminal itself and this
bottom brass piece just want to show you
an example of stripping not enough wire
so it was too short in terms of the
copper wire exposed compared to
insulation and you can see the
insulation will then interact with the
screw terminal and not get you the
connection you're looking for between
the wire and the terminal on the other
hand if you strip too much wire this is
what you're looking at and this is just
not best practice to have exposed wire
past the outlet and can cause issues
down the road
all right so here's an example of a
basic circuit we have our hot wire
connected to the brass screw terminals
if it's a basic circuit it does not
matter if it's top or bottom and then we
have our Neutral connected up to the
silver and then ground and really that's
all you're looking for there's there's
no wire that's pushed up we have nice
connection all the way around we have no
insulation interfering with the screw
terminal the wires are set against the
retainer and they're stripped all to the
appropriate length so that is what
you're looking for and easy enough so
just one other example if you have a
little bit older home maybe built in the
60s or 70s or some of the nicer homes
the higher end homes you'll have
switched outlets and that is where
you're getting power from a light switch
and that is powering the top or bottom
depending on the setup but powering one
side and then the others are always on
so in this case you'd have two different
hots coming in one being black which
should be your always-on outlet side and
then one being switched which will be
controlled and this is usually for lamps
or something like that the one note is
if you're swapping out an outlet and
changing it out one mistake that can be
made or overlooked is you need to remove
that that little tab here which was
connecting these two terminals if that's
not removed obviously you cannot control
these independently so when you remove
that now I can provide power
independently to both sides so that is
it hopefully this helped you guys out
give you just an idea to make you more
confident going into those simple
electrical projects like changing out an
outlet if this video helped you out go
ahead and subscribe to our Channel we'll
keep these type of videos coming out on
a weekly basis and hopefully help you
guys out with your projects around the
house
