Hi there.
My name is Nils with LRN2DIY and today we'll be showing you how to swap out your
outlets or light switches for new ones. Now,
the first step in anything you do with any electricity is to make sure that the
power is out to that receptacle. And to do that,
you just need to go to the circuit breaker box within your home and switch off
the appropriate thing, but always test to make sure that it's properly off.
So you can use any sort of a lamp or anything that will give you a quick
feedback to let you know that the power is definitely out on this outlet,
which we've already done. So we'll start by taking the faceplate off.
This one's been on here for, I don't know how long,
so you might have to kind of work it off. There we go. Next,
we're going to remove the two screws that hold the outlet itself in.
You can use a drill or a driver to do this.
If you've got one and that will make the job a little bit faster. Okay.
Once you've got it released like that,
we're just going to pull it out and we'll expose the wires here.
So back here we have two sets of black wires.
We have two sets of white wires and then one bare ground.
This is so the ground is the one that usually connects to a green screw back
here in this case, it's silver, but that's our ground wire,
which is almost always bare. Might have green cheating on it in some cases,
but typically bare,
your two black wires are called your line or your load wires.
And then your white wires are called your neutrals. In this case,
these are all push-in connectors.
So they just push right in and they lock in place.
And then most newer outlets will have these screws that you wrap around.
And we'll talk about how to do that in just a moment.
So every outlet will have a different release mechanism.
If you have screws like this,
you can just loosen the screws and pop the wires off.
This one has a release slot.
So you're going to take a slotted screwdriver like this, push in on it.
And then that will allow you to.
Wiggle that out...
Hopefully.
There we go. And they can be stubborn.
There we go. Here we go.
Okay. So now we've got our neutrals over on the other side, and then lastly,
we'll just loosen the screw for the ground.
So it's got a little.
Hook around it, which is pretty common.
We're actually going to do the same thing.
And so you can pry your screwdriver in between kind of loosen
that up a little bit.
And then it should pop off. Okay.
Now with our new white outlet that we're going to be placing in here,
there's a couple of tactics to help you remember. What's what,
so the black wires,
the load or line wires always go to the brass colored screws and they
both start with B. So I think black brass and on the white,
the white and the silver look a little bit more similar.
So white and silver go together. And then the ground,
like I mentioned is typically green. So we'll start with our green wire.
That's an easy one. And just like before,
we're going to use this little hook shape that we've got in here,
and then just tighten that in place because these are all phillips.
I'm going to go ahead and leverage that and tighten those in place. Typically,
you want to have your ground slot facing down now with these wires,
even on this new outlet, I can actually push these in.
I don't like to push them in just because in many cases they could come loose
over time, especially if there's any vibrations or anything like that.
So I find that fascinating them onto the screws is usually the best way to do
that. Now, if you have some needle, nose pliers like this,
then you can bend those right around into that hook shape.
We'll do a hook there, there, here,
and here.
And then it makes it pretty easy to just hook each one on
there's one And two,
and we'll tighten those guys in place.
I'll make sure that hook has good contact with the screw itself.
I'm giving it a little pull as I tighten.
[Inaudible].
All right, now that I've got everything connected.
This is a fully functional outlet at this point.
If we were to turn the power back on to this,
but before we do one thing I like to do just as a safety measure.
So I like to take some electrical tape,
put it under the screws and then wrap up these screw heads here.
Just like to cover those up.
Just makes me feel a little bit better about safety.
Now, many times the wires here are going to be really stiff.
They may be difficult to push all the way back in and fit in the box.
So you want to use a little bit of a folding technique if you need to.
In my case,
I think there's enough leeway and room in here as I push that back in.
Yep. It'll fit in there. Okay.
So we're going to get it close to where we need it to be and then take the
screwdriver and then drive these top and bottom screws into the same slots that
were there before then we're going to take our plate.
So we'll place that on there, fastened down the screw
and this outlet. And if you're anal like me,
I like to have all the slots lined up really nicely.
I don't know why it just makes me feel good. Um,
and then this thing is done and you've got a nice,
modern looking outlet with just a few minutes of work.
Now on a light switch like this,
we're going to follow mostly the same principles we're going to take off this
face plate. Now we have access to our screws under here,
and same as before. Take out the top, screw in the bottom screw. Now,
as we pull out the switch here, you'll notice a couple of one.
There are only black wires or the line or load wires connected to the switch
here. And the way this switch works is when you turn it on,
it basically completes a connection between these two,
which means the electricity is flowing all the way through and up to the lights.
When you turn the lights off,
it basically removes that connection or opens a separation between them so that
the lights turn off. There's no electricity going up there.
The other thing is back inside here, there are some ground wires,
but this old switch does not have a spot for them.
There's no screw for ground on newer switches. Like this one,
you've got your green ground screw.
And that's what we're going to use here to make sure that this is properly
grounded, which helps keep your electrical components safe.
So we're going to fish back in here for the ground.
So in this case, the grounds are all twisted together.
I think the simplest solution in this particular case is I'm going to untwist
one of these a little bit to get one of them free,
and then we'll snip the other two,
making sure they have a good connection to one another.
Yeah.
Okay. And then again, I'll make sure they're all twisted together.
So they're in great contact with one another. That's important.
Take our new switch. You want to make sure that you've got the orientation?
Correct. So here I've got the on,
and then if I put it this way,
then it's not going to work and everything will be upside down.
So we want to make sure you put it the right way.
So I'll connect my green screw here.
Okay.
It doesn't actually matter which one gets connected to which so
you can put either one on the top or the bottom.
All right. I'm double checking to make sure everything is upright.
The off switch is there, which is great.
I'll use my thumb to kind of push these back into the outlet box.
So just like before, I'm going to use a bit of electrical tape.
Just to.
Quickly cover everything up with that in there. Same as before,
we're jus t going to push all our wires back and then thread in our
screws. Okay.
And now that we've switched the power back on, on the circuit breaker,
we've got functioning light switch again and looking much better now for the
last outlet that we'll show today. This is called a G F C I outlet.
And these are typically found and required in bathrooms, kitchens,
or anywhere where there might be some moisture.
So what we're going to do is replace this today with a more modern version.
And then it also has a separate face plate to match.
So this will follow mostly the same path that we've done before,
but you've got two load and line wires. And then on this other side here,
you've got your two neutrals and then our ground is coming in underneath,
uh, down here. And same thing.
We've got our two brass for the two black and we've got our two silvers for the
white and our ground underneath. So just kind of wash, rinse, repeat here.
You just want to push everything back in.
And with that, we have our finished product here. Like you can see.
So this is something you can repeat and do throughout the house. Now,
if you have any questions or comments on that,
please feel free to leave those in the comment section below and I'll do my best
to help out. Now, if you want to take this one step further,
you can also check out my videos right up here,
where you can learn how to make these smart or wifi enabled light switches makes
things a lot easier and helps you work with your existing home automation
systems like Alexa and Google home. Thanks for watching.
We'll see you next time.