Switch – How to rewire a switched receptacle and make it permanently hot

rewireswitch

I have a light switch that controls the top half and bottom half of a nearby receptacle. How do I disconnect this switch and make both halves of the receptacle permanently hot? There are other receptacles on the same circuit located to the left and right of my switched receptacle. The light switch and receptacle are wired as shown:

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I am installing recessed lights and want to run that circuit to this switch location and replace the switch with a dimmer to control the recessed lights.

Best Answer

The 2 black wires are piggy-backed, indicating that one is the incoming hot and the other is the hot to other device(s). The red appears to be the switched hot supplying the receptacle in question, so...

Turn off the power at the circuit breaker/fuse panel first! Then disconnect all the wires from the switch and connect them together with an appropriately sized twist-on wire connector, except for the ground, which simply terminates at the box. The red wire supplying current to the receptacle will now be an un-switched hot.