Replacing the guts of outlets
Because of the high cost of hiring professional contractors, I’ve taught myself how to complete home improvement projects.
Over the years I’ve gutted most of the rooms in the house down to the bare studs and taught myself how to create a comfortable and beautiful living space. I’ve learned to install insulation and drywall. I’ve replaced overhead light fixtures and windows. I’ve refinished hardwood floors and laid down ceramic tile. One of the tasks that initially intimidated me was replacing electrical outlets. I don’t like to tackle any DIY projects that have the potential to kill me or burn my house down. I would never attempt to install a new electrical panel. I hire a licensed electrician for the complex jobs. However, replacing the guts of an outlet, or even moving the location of an outlet, is not overly difficult. In my home, the old outlets were brown in color, cut into the middle of the baseboards and had been painted over. I discovered that there is nothing scary or difficult about it. The first step was to turn off the power to the house. Rather than worry about cutting the power to the specific set of outlets I planned to work on, I flipped the main and interrupted power to the whole house. I used a screwdriver to remove the face plate from the electrical outlet. I removed the electrical outlet from the box by unscrewing the visible screws. This allowed me to pull the outlet away from the box. I removed the wires from the old outlet by unscrewing the screws they are wrapped around. I loosened them just enough to slip the wires off and then tossed the old outlet into the trash. Now it was time to deal with the grounding wire. The ground wire needs to be grounded to the box as well as to the outlet. The ground wire is usually be a green or a bare copper wire. Before installing the new outlet, I wrapped the ground wire around the grounding screw at the back of metal box and then pulled it forward to the receptacle.