How to Swap Out an Outlet Connected to a Switch
Hey all! Dropping in with a short post today about something we discovered when painting our accent wall.
Since we had taken off all the outlet covers to paint, we decided to swap out the outlets on this wall while we were at it. The old ones were atrociously almond, plus the plastic on the outlets themselves was starting to crack, which seemed like a fire hazard.
David rewired them (take a look at this post if you'd like to get an idea of how he swapped them out). However, the outlet to the left of the fireplace was connected to a switch on our wall that we used to turn the side table lamp on and off. When he installed it like any other outlet, it worked when physically turning the lamp on and off, but the switch on the wall wouldn't do anything. Here's what he figured out.
In the picture above, note the metal tabs (depicted with arrow) on either side of the outlet. Now take a look at the old outlet.
The metal tab on the old outlet was snapped off on the side where the red and black wires connect. Here are the old and new outlets side-by-side.
Old outlet above, new outlet below. Snapping off that metal tab redirects the current to the switch in the wall. Just make sure you snap off on the side with the red and black wires, rather than the white. Once we figured that out, it was easy as pie!
Now we have this little trick up our sleeve for the rest of the house, because Lord knows all the almond is going . . . eventually.
Since we had taken off all the outlet covers to paint, we decided to swap out the outlets on this wall while we were at it. The old ones were atrociously almond, plus the plastic on the outlets themselves was starting to crack, which seemed like a fire hazard.
David rewired them (take a look at this post if you'd like to get an idea of how he swapped them out). However, the outlet to the left of the fireplace was connected to a switch on our wall that we used to turn the side table lamp on and off. When he installed it like any other outlet, it worked when physically turning the lamp on and off, but the switch on the wall wouldn't do anything. Here's what he figured out.
In the picture above, note the metal tabs (depicted with arrow) on either side of the outlet. Now take a look at the old outlet.
The metal tab on the old outlet was snapped off on the side where the red and black wires connect. Here are the old and new outlets side-by-side.
Old outlet above, new outlet below. Snapping off that metal tab redirects the current to the switch in the wall. Just make sure you snap off on the side with the red and black wires, rather than the white. Once we figured that out, it was easy as pie!
Now we have this little trick up our sleeve for the rest of the house, because Lord knows all the almond is going . . . eventually.
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