Throughout the life of a home you may find that an electrical outlet or light switch will go bad. Or you may want to just change the outlet. I have had to change outlets because the color was beige and I wanted white. Whatever the reason you may come to a place where you will need to replace an outlet or a light switch. You can call an electrician but if you know how to fix it yourself you can save yourself a lot of time and money.
Replacing an outlet or a switch is generally the same. The first step is to shut the power off to the switch or outlet you are replacing. If you are unsure as to which breaker will turn off this particular outlet or switch I have plugged a lampBreaker Box lables into the outlet and just turned off the switches until the lamp goes off. Or turn the switch on and when the light that the switch controls goes off, I know I have the right breaker. This obviously won’t work if you have a defective switch or outlet. In this case you will want to have a volt meter to measure your AC at the outlet and then turn off the breakers one by one until you have no AC at this outlet or switch. The best thing to do though, is before you ever get to this point where you are trying to figure out Tools to replace an electrical outlet 1which breaker you need to turn off, go to your breaker box and determine what circuit breakers control what rooms in your home and tape a diagram inside of the door of your breaker box so you will know what breakers need to be shut off in case of an emergency.
Now that you have your power off to the outlet or switch let’s get started with showing you how to fix it. You now will need to take a small flat blade screwdriver and remove the wall plate by removing the screw(s) on the front of the wall plate. Next, you will take the screws loose at the top and bottom of the outlet or switch. This should allow you to pull the outlet or switch out of the electrical box. how to replace an Electrical Outlet
How to fix an electrical outlet that doesn't work - Now you should see two wires attached on either side of the switch, one black and one white. You may also have a bare wire that is attached to ground or usually a green screw on the outlet or it may be attached inside of the electrical box. On some older homes you may only have two wires going to the box. Simply loosen the screws on the outlet so you can remove the wires from the outlet or switch. If the bare wire is attached to the switch, remove it as well. If it is attached inside of the box don’t worry about removing the bare wire.
Now take your new outlet or switch and reinstall it. If you look at the new outlet or switch you will see that one set of screws on one side is silver and the other side is a brass color. The silver side will get the white wire and the brass side will get the black wire. Attach the wires by wrapping the bare end of the wire completely around the screw. You may How to fix an electrical outletneed to take a pair of needle nose pliers and get the wire completely around the screw. Once the wire is secure around the screw, tighten the screw.