install electric outlet
i am looking for advice about installing the electric outlets in my basement. the electrician has done all the wiring, but we can’t work with him anymore, and having gone online, it seems that with utmost care, a layperson can do such a thing. anyone have any experience with this? these would be 20 amp…
i am looking for advice about installing the electric outlets in my basement. the electrician has done all the wiring, but we can’t work with him anymore, and having gone online, it seems that with utmost care, a layperson can do such a thing. anyone have any experience with this? these would be 20 amp outlets.
Understood. Thank you.
Anywhere else in the country where they use romex and plastic back boxes I would tell you to have fun and to use your screw driver to hook the wires. This is NYC where we use BX and grounded metal boxes. If you terminate something incorrectly and it comes apart there is more that can go wrong. A firefighter in Staten Island died this week because of someone’s bad wiring. Please find someone more experienced to help you.
Yes! Exactly. All the wiring is in place. What you say sounds correct — there are two sets of wires in these sockets: each set a white and black wire, twisted together. My only question is whether it matters which socket I install the first receptacle in.
A “How To” electrical book that you can purchase at most hardware stores will walk you through a lot of basic electrical issues. They usually have step-by-step pictures on everything.
Oops, make sure electricity is disconnected first
Do you mean you just need to connect the in-place wiring to sockets? Easy.
If there are pigtails in place (a single white a single black wire standing out from a pair within the box) white->silver screw, black->gold screw. Curl the wires so the tightening screws tightens the loop (ie there are two ways to set the loop on the screw.)
If no pigtails, and you have pairs of white and black wires, connect each pair to the correct color, since all sockets have 2 silver and 2 gold screws. That’s it.
OK. All of the outlet points are wired, i.e., have wires coming out of them already — so not sure what is meant by how to daisy-chain them?
I agree w/ BFAG – mainly because a skilled person will know how to daisy-chain the outlets &, once you’ve seen it done, it’ll be easy for you next time (series vs. parallel). I did mine after watching an electrician – he also clued me in as to how to gang circuits so that if one went out, the other one was still o.k.
Installing outlets are fairly painless and you are correct that care needs to be taken. You don’t sound terribly confident so I might recommend hiring a handyman to do the majority of this work. Let him show you how it’s done and let you help that way you are prepared to tackle the next project solo.