Electrical – How to make outlet half-hot in this situation

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Current state: Outlet is completely controlled by light switch, top and bottom switch on and off from this switch.

Desired state: Only top of outlet is controlled by light switch, bottom to remain on at all times–even when light switch is flipped on or off.

Failed attempt: Tried to make it half-hot by clipping the tab on one side, but this resulted in just disabling the bottom, so it was always off, whereas the top would still go on and off depending on the switch.

Any way to make this work without running wiring differently from the switch?

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Best Answer

If there are just two 2-wire cables (excluding ground), it looks like this outlet and down-stream outlets are all switched, and no part of the outlets can be made always hot without new wiring.

To have a half switched outlet, you need either 3-wire cable coming from the switch (always hot/switched hot/neutral) or you need always hot line directly to the outlet box and then a switch loop controlling one half of the duplex.