This is going to sound like a duplicate question but it's actually reversed.
We live in a house built in the 1960's (in the US). We have metal conduit throughout and surprisingly a ground wire that is terminated at each electrical box. Many of the outlets were 2-prong, and I've been replacing them with 3-prong.
I came across one outlet today that confused me. Instead of the standard 4 wires coming in, I only saw 3. And to make things stranger, it was 2 neutrals (white) and one hot (red) attached to a 2-prong screw terminal duplex-X receptacle (all 4 holes are T-shaped). Also it is a switched outlet.
Has anyone ever seen something like this? Is there a way to convert this to a 3-prong receptacle?
Best Answer
That's a combination 120/240v outlet that could be wired for 120 volt or 240 Volt. You're wired for 120 Volt so just turn off the power, remove the old outlet and get your regular grounded outlet and hook the red, switched hot, to the brass screw and the two whites to the silver screws. A better way to work with the two neutrals would be to pigtail both together with a 8" piece of white wire using a wire nut. Then connect the single white wire to the outlet. Make sure you use the right wire size. Since you have a bare ground wire, hook it to the ground screw on the new outlet.