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Replacing electrical outlets...

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07-11-03, 02:08 PM

bob md

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Replacing electrical outlets...

Hi,
All the electric receptacles in the house we just bought have been painted over & are ugly. We are now going to repaint the entire interior of the house and I want to replace all of them. Currently the house is not wired for grounding, with a the exception of a couple of outlets. This coming winter & fall I want to start to re-wire the house (one room at a time) to replace the wiring w/ grounding.

Question - I want to replace the receptacles now - can I use the 3 prong (ground) now, even though it's not grounded? Since I painting now, I'd like to do it now & just once.

Thanks,
Bob

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07-11-03, 02:38 PM

John Nelson

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I suggest you leave the receptacles alone until you rewire. There are some ways to allow you to replace them, but that would be more trouble than it's worth since you are going to rewire anyway.

Silver lining#1: This way you won't need to worry about getting paint on the receptacles when you paint the walls.

Silver lining#2: Looking at those ugly old receptacles in your newly painted walls will encourage you not to put off that rewiring forever.

Warning: There are a lot of common mistakes people make when replacing receptacles. Most of these arise when switch loops, split-wired, and switched receptacles are involved. Make sure you understand how each of these are done.

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Electrical - AC & DC
Cutler Hammer Help!

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Augustwest on Jul 10, 2003

Hi. We just bought a split level that has 100 amp service. My friend is an electrician, and ran some new romex on a double breaker that was connected to an old 220 dryer outlet. My problem is, I need 2 single 15 or 20 amp Cutler Hammer breakers with the "notch" in them to replace the old double that was for the dryer. The main box is from the 60's-70's and that'd help us avoid the costs of a new service right now. All the local electrical supply's no longer carry that type and only have the solid breakers. Any chance any of you on the board might have some old 'leftovers' I could purchase and ship? My only other alternative, other then re-doing the service, was suggested by two of the supply places. Remove that center bar from the main box and use new single 20's in it's place(they said the breakers would be "floating" in this scenario though, but still connected.) My electrican friend frowned on that one which made me believe it wasn't safe for our family? Thanks in advance for your help or advice on this. AW Central NJ
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clarkw16 on Jul 11, 2003

The cable comes out of the house and is seperated into three separate wires. These wires run from the house to a light post, where they are spliced/pigtailed and ran to the light. Then 3 more wires come out of the light and continue to the garage where they are all joined back into one cable and enter the garage. The light post is controled by a switch in the house and the electric to the garage is hot all the time. How do I replace the wires and connect them to the light and continue on to the garage?

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