In the house it seems that the original owner wanted all top outlets to be switched and the bottoms to be always on. I hate this and want to fix it.
So I took all the outlets out from the one room. Now I have two sets of red,white,black,ground at each 1 gang box. How can I properly wire each new outlet to always be on and to only use the white,black,ground without re-running wires?
I tested the wires at the switch box and now I am not getting any power to them, so I'm assuming its safe to cap these wires and hide them in the box, correct?
Update: I found which outlet gets the power from the feed. However, when I connect it to the outlet, all red wires become hot. How is this even possible if the next outlet is disconnected completely? Aren't outlets typically daisy chained? I have 5 outlets in the room and my switch is disconnected. The switch seems to work backwards and start at the last outlet.
Update*: Only two outlets are actually showing that red is hot when all outlets are disconnected.
I believe this is how its wired.
Best Answer
It would have been simpler to just connect the bottom outlet's live (the black) to the top outlet live on each pair.
The switched live wire (red normally) should be connected through to the end and labeled in each spot (this allows the next guy to restore some outlets to the switched setup).