There is one power outlet (double) in my room where the top outlet turns on/off from a wall switch and the bottom one is always on. I just replaced the outlet with the new one, making sure all the wires go into the same holes in the new outlet as they were in the old one, but now the top outlet is always on as well as the bottom one and the switch does nothing to it. This is my first time replacing outlets (learned off youtube :)) and I have no electrical experience (just using common sense) so I can't figure out what might be wrong. Did I need a special electric outlet, or did I somehow mess up the wiring? Where do I start?
Electrical – Power outlet that works off a switch no longer shuts off after replacement
electrical
Related Solutions
If everything else is hooked up correctly, then you have a bad switch. This is easy to diagnose if you have a meter that measures continuity. Most digital multimeters have this option. Kill the power to this circuit at the panel before testing for this or performing any work on this circuit. The connection between the two screws of the switch will be open in the "off" position, and will be closed in the "on" positions. If the meter reads "closed" in either position then you have a bad switch. If you don't have a multimeter, just put a new switch in and see if that fixes it. The other possibility is incorrect wiring. If you replaced a fan/light combo then you probably had 3-wire going from the switch box to the device box (black, red, and white wires). When you wire the new light fixture, select one wire and cap it on both ends so you won't use it by accident (I usually cap off the red one, we usually use black in residential applications for the hot wire). This will only leave you with a black and white going to the lamp. After that, it's a simple act of wiring the black to one screw of the switch and putting your whites under a wire-nut in the switch box. The black from the panel goes on the other screw. Don't forget to bond your grounds to the boxes if they're metal.
Your wiring should look something like this.
- You'll use a twist-on wire connector (or other approved means) to connect the incoming ungrounded (hot) conductor, to three lengths of black wire.
- Connect the first length of wire from the bundle, to a terminal on the single pole switch.
- Connect another length of wire from the bundle, to the common terminal on the double switch (the common terminal should be black, or some other odd color other than green).
- Connect the final length of wire from the bundle, to the brass colored LINE terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductor leading to the light, to the other terminal on the single pole switch.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductors leading to the light/fan, to the terminals on the double switch.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductor leading to the GFCI protected devices, to the brass colored LOAD terminal of the GFCI.
- Use a twist-on wire connector (or other approved means) to combine the incoming grounded (neutral), the grounded (neutral) from the light, the grounded (neutral) from the light/fan, and a length of white wire.
- Connect the length of wire from the neutral bundle, to the silver colored LINE terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect the grounded (neutral) conductor from the GFCI protected devices, to the silver LOAD terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect all grounding conductors in an approved manner.
NOTE: Notice that the grounded (neutral) conductor leading to the GFCI protected devices, is NOT connected to the other grounded (neutral) conductors in the box.
NOTE: Since I don't know the exact devices you're using, the terminal layout of the diagram might not be correct.
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Best Answer
You didn't break off the tab between the hot screws. There's a small metallic tab that normally connects the two hots to allow chaining of outlets (line and load) along a circuit. For a half switched outlet, you need to use a pair of needle nose pliers to break off the tab.