Five Tips For Installing a New Electrical Outlet

Installing a new electrical receptacle is not tooReplace them the same way on the new one. If
difficult. However, it does take a basicusing screw terminals, wrap the wires in a
understanding of electricity. Here are five tips forclockwise direction. This way the wires will wrap
replacing a worn out receptacle.around the screw. If you wrap them counter
1. Turn of the power. This cannot be emphasizedclockwise, they may eventually come off.
enough. Safety is the most important featureRemember the black wire goes to the small hole,
when working on any electric household products.The white wire goes to the large hole. The green
Go to your breaker box and flip the appropriateor bare wire goes to the ground.
breaker. Hopefully it will be marked. However, this5. Replace the top and bottom mounting screws.
is not always the case. You may need toPut the new cover on. Go back to the breaker
experiment to get the right one.box and restore power. This should finish your
2. Check to be sure that the power is really dead.project.
Household circuits do not always follow a pattern.Summary
You may turn off a breaker. It may make all ofIt will not be too hard to install you new electrical
the lights in the room go out. However, it mayreceptacle. Do not attempt this, if you have no
not be the one that controls the outlet. If youknowledge of basic electricity. The most
have a meter or neon tester, use it. Check theimportant thing to remember, is to turn the
upper and lower plug in areas. If there is nopower off. Make certain that you turn off the
tester, use something like a lamp.right breaker, by checking the outlet for power. If
3. Remove the cover plate and take out the topyou use screw terminals, wrap the wire in a
and bottom screws. This will remove the outletclockwise direction. This will keep it on the
from the box.terminal.
4. Remove all of the old wires from the old unit.