Updating Wall Electrical Outlets

How often have you gone to plug an electrical cord into a wall only to find the electrical cord has three prongs and the wall outlet only has two? What do you do?

There are only two safe methods to remedy this situation. One is to replace the receptacle with a modern three-prong-accepting receptacle. The other method is to use what is commonly called a “three-prong-adapter.” However, very few people use a three-prong-adapter correctly.

They use it for convenience rather than safety. A three-prong-adapter must be used correctly. You should not connect the ground wire to a ground or run an extension cord from another receptacle or cut the third prong off the electrical cord. These are not only incorrect solutions; they can also be very dangerous solutions. All three leave your appliance (lamp, motor, tool, etc.) without a secondary safety ground.

Today we’re going to replace the two-prong-accepting receptacles with three-prong-accepting receptacles.

We’ll do this for safety and to eliminate the need for turning your house upside down and inside out just to find those little three-prong-adapters.

Installing a three-prong-accepting receptacle in your home electrical system isn’t very difficult. However, if certain precautions aren’t taken, electricity can be extremely dangerous. Start by shutting off the electricity to the receptacle you’d like to replace.

If you are alone, plug a radio into the outlet with the volume up and go to the main panel and see which circuit breaker (or fuse) protects that receptacle. This eliminates the need for running up and down the stairs to test each circuit breaker. Test it again to make sure you have sufficient light coming from another live circuit (branch circuit). Use a drop light.

Unscrew the old receptacle but don’t remove the old wires. Take care not to damage any frail wires. You should notice that there are black wires on one side of the existing receptacle (usually the side with brass-colored terminals) and white wires on the other side (usually attached to silver terminals).

If there is only one white wire on one side and one black wire on the other, don’t worry. This means that this particular receptacle is at the end of its circuit. This does not affect your installation at all. However, if the wires in the box are so old that their color is indistinguishable, find those which are fastened to the brass side and code them black, and then code the wires fastened to the silver side white neutral.

Now that you have the existing receptacle outside the wall box, start to switch the wires over to the new three-prong-accepting receptacle.

If you have all the wires in the box coded, simply disconnect all the wires from the old receptacle and fasten them (black to brass, white to silver) to the terminals on the new, and fasten a special wire from the little green terminal located at the bottom of the new receptacle.

Tighten everything, clean the wall box out while you have the chance and put the wall plate back over the new receptacle. Put the electricity back on and test to see if the receptacle works properly.

If you’re hesitant to work with electricity or unfamiliar with any of this, I suggest contacting a licensed electrician to change all of your outdated receptacles.

You may even want to add ground fault circuit interrupters in your bath and outdoor outlets. It is not an expensive procedure and the benefits can be lifesaving. At least you’ll be able to get rid of those little adapters.