Hi I'm Mat from eSpares, in this video I'll be showing you how to change
an electrical wall socket or wall plate in your home.
Safety first: Electrical circuit works should always be carried out by competent person in accordance
with any relevant regulations. If you're unsure about doing it yourself
do contact a qualified electrician before carrying out any work.
The next thing to do is to make sure that the switch is working correctly.
And a great way to do that is to plug in this socket tester which if I put the power
to the wall socket all three lights illuminate.
Which means that this socket is wired in correctly.
Once you're happy that the socket is wired correctly
the next thing you need to do is to turn the circuit off that powers the socket itself.
So go to your fuse board find the relevant circuit and then turn the power off to the socket.
Do make sure that when you're working that no one turns the power back on.
With the power turned off to the socket I can remove the socket tester and unscrew
the front face of the socket itself.
With both screws removed I'm just going to carefully pull on the front of the socket
so I can show you the wiring behind and access it easily.
With the front of the socket removed here we can clearly see the terminals that all the wires connect to.
What I'm gonna do just to ensure that there's no power coming to the socket
I am going to use a multimeter to test across the connections.
What I've done is set this to the highest AC voltage available and going to check across the terminals
across all of them using the two probes.
The reading on the meter should not change so thats one, two and three, no meter reading change
so I'm free to disconnect the wires from the terminals.
With the wires disconnected from the terminals grab your front which it's worth pointing out
may come with brand new screws.
So i'm just going to remove those.
You can then reconnect all your wire's back into the relevant terminals
which are listed as neutral, earth and live so you can be sure
you putting the right wires into the right terminals.
What I've done before I re connect the wires to the terminals is just collect the wires
in the groupings that they're going to go in inside the terminals
because the wires can be very stiff so I'm going to connect them all at the same time.
It's worth pointing out the terminal screws may have to be released before connecting
the wires back in before you then tighten the terminal screw back up.
With all the wires back in place in the correct terminals
give the wires a quick tug to make sure they're all in place firmly.
Then it's just a case of feeding the wires back into the socket
making sure you don't pinch any before screwing in the front socket plate.
It's worth noting before i screw the socket front in place that the wires behind the socket front can be very stiff.
So don't be afraid to shove the socket face into position before re screwing.
Once you are happy your socket is firmly in place
Reset the relevant fuse at your fuse board you can then grab your handy plug-in socket tester,
and there we have it all three lights meaning that the socket is wired correctly.
For a wide range of electrical fittings and for all the spares and accessories
for the appliances around your home visit the eSpares website.
Thanks for watching.