I'm a beginner, so keep that in mind…
My house has the dishwasher and disposal plugged in under the sink, where the bottom outlet is hooked to the disposal switch. I've heard it isn't generally ideal to have both on the same outlet, but that's how the builders did it.
I just replaced the dishwasher, and the installation kit included a power cable with a right angle connection. Since the bottom outlet is on a switch, I have to use the top outlet, which blocks the bottom.
I realized this of course after I completed all the hookups and I really don't feel like taking the whole thing apart again.
The solutions I can think of are:
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Re-wire the outlet so the top one is on the switch instead of the bottom one. Is this even possible, and if so, considering I've never done it before and it's under the kitchen sink without much room, how hard would this be?
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Put the dishwasher in the switch outlet, and tape the switch permanently on. Put a smart plug between the disposal plug and the wall, so I can control the disposal with my cell phone.
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Put the dishwasher on an extension cord. I've read this is a really bad idea, but are there particular extension cords that would make this safe?
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Cut the cord and put a new end on it. I've never done this, so is this difficult or dangerous?
What are the ups and downs of these?
Best Answer
This should be very straightforward. There are actually two different configurations possible. Find the one or two breakers and turn them off. The catch is that it could be one (hot split, 1/2 to switch and top receptacle, 1/2 to bottom receptacle) or it could be two (most likely as an MWBC, one hot to each 1/2). We can't guess which one it is. If there are two breakers then they should be a pair (technically, common shut-off, in reality almost always an actual "double breaker").
After turning off the breaker(s), use a non-contact tester to make sure there is no power. Just in case. Then take off the cover plate and remove the receptacle from the wall but don't remove any wires yet. You should see two colored hot wires on the brass screws (or backstabs near the brass screws) and one or two white neutral wires on the silver screws.
If you have only one breaker involved then you should only have one neutral wire. If you have two breakers then you may have one neutral (MWBC) or two neutrals (two independent circuits - unlikely).
The actual work:
Put it all back together, turn on power and you should find the switch now operates the bottom receptacle instead of the top receptacle.
DO NOT DO THIS! EVER!
This is not only not "normal", it is exceedingly dangerous. The reason the disposal switch is normally above the sink is so that you can see exactly what is going on when you turn on the disposal and so that you can immediately turn it off if there is a problem. If you control by phone, numerous scenarios could happen, including "someone else borrows your phone to make a call and accidentally starts the App while you are working in the sink" and "phone crashes right after you turned on the disposal or the phone rings while the disposal is on, will the App stay focused?" etc. DO NOT DO THIS! EVER!
This is OK as a temporary solution, until you rewire the receptacles.
Not cut the cord, REPLACE the cord. This actually is not too hard on a properly designed appliance. But the work involved is comparable to "swap wires in the receptacles" and doing that doesn't actually cost you anything, where this will cost you a new cord.