How To Add A New Outlet Anywhere You Want It

all right today i want to show you one of the most common electrical projects for diyers and that's you move into a house you start kind of getting your living spaces where you want it and you don't have an outlet where you need it so how do you add a standard 120 15 amp or 20 amp outlet where there is no box there's no outlet there's no wire starting fresh that's what we're going to go over today and i'm calling in my buddy joe walsman from jefferson electric to walk us through the complete project so you guys can take that on at home or just be more educated if you're going to hire somebody to do the job so we're adding the outlet boom right there at the homeowner's request in this breakfast nook 1928 home but we'll give you tips and tricks for older homes newer homes and show you some different methodologies and we're utilizing simplistic tools nothing fancy and nothing specialized so that you can do this if you're comfortable with the codes and standards of your area and what it takes to stay safe so we're cutting a new hole in the wall 11 inches above finished floor the reason for that is because we're going to match existing that's my recommendation to you and before we start cutting holes in the wall and demonstrating exactly how to do that how to fish your wire how to navigate through framing we're going to go take a look in the basement to match this project to your project check the timeline it's divided into chunks so you can look at the different chapters of the project and skip ahead so we just came from upstairs where our outlet's going to be located and it's going to be approximately in this vicinity we're going to show you how to identify that between floors because that gets a little confusing then we're going to bring our romex wire down from above through the joist cavity and we're going to drill the joists in a code compliant manner we do want to do that as opposed to stapling it to the bottom that's a code issue we'll talk about a little bit more until we hit a junction box where we've identified a suitable 20 amp circuit to make our wiring connection let's jump upstairs take a look at parts and tools real quick so that you're equipped and then go right into cutting holes drilling making a mess and getting that outlet installed here's our tools and materials for executing this project we've got a hammer for our staples a folding ruler could be easily substituted for a tape measure we're measuring the height of the box razor blade for stripping our wire wire strippers for stripping the internal conductors and a couple other maneuvers we'll show you jab saw easily execute this project with a five dollar jab saw if you've got drywall in this case we'll be utilizing a oscillator because we're going through plaster and lath so it's a heavier cut we've got a 3 16 flat head screw driver with a nice little blow out of the side number one square drive that pairs perfectly with your receptacle single gang slater remodel box rim model because it doesn't have mounting nails it has mounting tabs some other alternatives there that will demonstrate to you as well wire nuts for wiring terminations at the junction box wire connector for the junction box as well smallish drill bit and that's a little secret right there i'm going to show you later source of light so i don't get lost in the dark cranny of the basement electrical tape for fishing my wire and then really in this case i am drilling through older wood so i've probably got a little bit of a a heavier drill than what the average house that's built in the last 20 or 30 years would have so i'm utilizing a dewalt 20 volt xrp drill i've also got a right angle drill which is going to help me out in the basement but it's totally optional in this oscillator again to facilitate my cut the wire i'm utilizing is 12 2 romex that means it's got two conductors plus a ground total of three but it's called twelve two romex and it is necessary on a 20 amp circuit to pair with 12 gauge wire if you're running a 15 amp circuit that would be 14 gauge wire and last but not least 15 amp outlet you're gonna ask a question 15 at outlet 20 amp circuit is that legal absolutely i'll dive into that later this might look a little overwhelming you can screenshot this you've got a record of what's going on here or you can check below the video in the description for a full list there and where to buy these parts now time to cut a hole so in this case i'm 11 inches above finished floor to the bottom of my box which puts me right at the shelf on the wallpaper a typical home built today is going to be about 15 inches to bottom of the box but we're matching existing that's my recommendation to you and one of the most important things is this whole measure twice cut once concept right so there are a few ways to go about this pull out your stud finder find out where the studs are this is a plaster wall with lav behind it so there my a traditional stud finder is not going to work there are stud finders that are made for this purpose but you can also you can knock the wall and listen use echolocation to find out where that stud is maybe you can check your trim for nail patterning and look for a 16 on center nail pattern there to identify where those studs are but regardless you want to make sure that it's a check twice cut once in this case i've got this wallpaper that the homeowner is doing some remodeling here the trim is loose so a bit of an advantage to me here i'm going to plunge drill before i actually cut the wall with this pilot bit it's an sds carbide bit so it's going to give it's going to last forever in this plaster without dulling on high speed since it's a small bit so that resistance was actually coming from getting through the lav because this is not a wood and metal bit but look at that available depth i've got the wall that's beautiful and i'm going to just wiggle it a little bit side to side wonderful with the depth of that bit and the amount of movement i've got i'm in good shape [Applause] all right i've got a good cavity there to work with box of choice today is a single gang slater box it's a remodel you also have options for if you've got drywall a blue car lawn remodel box the reason i'm choosing the slater is because if you notice i've got a metal tab not a plastic and i've got more depth here than i've got on the blue carlin box this is really intended for old work in a drywall situation but that extra space right there is magical when you're dealing with plaster lav and that additional thickness it's not uncommon for that to be three quarters of an inch and to require the full capacity of this slater box there's also an option for a two game box if you're installing multiple receptacles this would be referred to as a duplex receptacle or a double duplex alright so now we've got bottom of our box at the top of the shelf i'm gonna lay it to the wall in reverse so that i'm marking the outline of the box if i've got a finished situation it is relatively rather nice to utilize something like a mechanical pencil because then i've got the ability to erase and my marks are real light sometimes a carpenter's pencil is so aggressive if you do get into the place where you've made an error there's just a little bit more forgiveness with a lightweight instrument as i mentioned in this case i'm utilizing an oscillator i'm going to give you a trick how to extend the life of the blade and if you're getting through plaster and lab with the jab saw long hard day which is why i'm using this incredible power tool that hit the industry what five six eight years ago made our lives a lot easier what i'm going to do to extend the life of the blade is i'm actually going to almost like a hammer action use the side of my blade to score the cut and i'm going to get through my plaster and there is some kind of drywall overlay i've got here so i don't know how many layers of material i've got back there but i'm going to cut until i get to the wood with the side of my blade and then i'm going to turn and plunge cut and pro tip is go slow take it easy under pressure and a lot of force the oscillator is not actually going to perform you'll put that blade in a bind but if you keep lightweight pressure it'll actually accelerate the cut here we go that's to be expected it's an exterior wall so we actually have three quarter inch security lab this stuff is old growth it's beefy see that heat that smoke rolling out of there that's just because i'm using a dull blade cutting some good old hardwood right there that's it we have a good clean hole here first time fit no sir it's a little too tight top to bottom so we're gonna open it up all right we've got a good clean hole here watch out for overcut the only thing holding your box to the surface on the front side are these four tabs if you cut beyond that project just became 3x more difficult let's figure out how to get that hole between floors and start running our wire pro tip now i'm using this mysterious little uh wood drill bit and the luxury here is the trim is loose so in order to identify my hole in the basement i'm drilling straight down through the floor below the box [Music] and you can use landscaping flags or anything but drop the blade of your screwdriver anything works i've got this wire nice and long and i'm going to drop it in there i'm hitting insulation and that'll be my identifier in the basement so now we're in the basement we've taken the insulation out of our way from the rim joist we've identified where our hole is so we know exactly where to drill up through we're not going to follow that hole we're actually going to go two inches behind it so we come up in center of exterior wall and then once we're certain that we've got the wire up the wall and plenty of wire then we're going to cut it to length drill through our joists and peel off across the basement [Music] so you might not have this 90 degree beast right here that allowed me to get into that really tight space but you could use an impact driver with a short bit or maybe a 90 degree angle bit on it those things are like 8 10 bucks and also an alternative is using a standard drill and coming at it from an angle and actually drilling if this is where you want your hole to be you would come at the hole in front and drill at an angle understanding that you're gonna just have to choose that angle so you don't pop out the outside of the house right i've actually done that before too all right let's get it plan of attack make sure we have plenty of wire if in this case since we're drilling through the holes we want our holes to be pretty well aligned both in the vertical and horizontal plane because every time there's a little offset that will cause resistance on the wire pull and it can fight you pretty good sometimes so i'm going to feed up through the hole make sure i have plenty at my destination the outlet above us and then i'm going to peel it back cut it to length make sure i've got 16 inches or more of excess run the holes after i have a well planned route and execute [Music] so we've just run our wiring through pulled it out of the hole upstairs in the wall now we're going to map our course across the joists here checking both sides of each joist to make sure we're not about to penetrate an electrical line a gas line and turn this project into a massive headache our destination is this junction box right here where we've identified a suitable 20 amp circuit let's rock staples of choice are these plastic staples you can use the metal staples they make multiple types these are pretty universally available and they're real kind to the wire in case you start pounding like a railroad spike you just want to secure the wire and you want to make sure that you don't actually um deform the shape of the conductors at all so a lightweight hammer and a lightweight swing is all you need and i'm intentionally leaving a little bit extra some of the guys when they run wire it's tied as a piano string i want extra this wire is right down the center of all these joist cavities if i come at a later date or anyone else and runs a pipe a duct anything of that nature and i don't have a little bit of serviceability i'm doing a pretty big disfavor but i'm going gonna pull out some of that extra i don't want that much here's our junction box our home run coming into this junction box is a 12-3 the 12-3 is distinct in that it actually includes a red conductor that's our third current carrying conductor this is a multi-wire branch circuit we're not going to get lost in the weeds there that red is the distinct current carrying conductor that third current carrying conductor in the 12 3 romex in this case the red is going to service another circuit in the kitchen and our incoming 20 amp circuit will be serviced by this black and white the neutral is being shared between the two circuits not to get lost in that the basic rules of thumb are these match your wire size to the incoming wire size if you're connecting at a junction box be sure that the circuit capacity is sufficient for the loads what does that mean well take a look at your refrigerator inside the door for instance there'll be a name plate and on that name plate there'll be an amp capacity so we've got a 20 amp circuit let's say we have a 6 amp refrigerator and a 12 amp toaster at this point we're at 18 amps so we're sufficient to have those two appliances on a 20 amp circuit because we're properly servicing the load i've got a junction box here i'm lucky but you're probably gonna have to create your own so a couple quick thoughts one you have to have a junction box wiring cannot be connected in free air two that junction box has to remain accessible so you can't just stuff it inside a wall and close it up and three the junction box has to be firmly secured to the structure with proper wire connectors for wire entry all right now let's wire it up and when we finish this up head to the other end and wire up our outlet at this point i'm stripping my wire with my razor blade i'm stripping eight to nine inches i'd like every wire coming into the box to be relatively similar it's going to make matching up the ends of my conductors and making terminations simpler installing my connector i want the connector to be tool tight not just hand tight it is super common for diyers not to have a connector installed don't be that guy the reasons for connectors are one it's code two these sharp metal edges on the box at some point are gonna cause damage to the wire that may result in failure three it's going to prevent infiltration of unwanted stuff whether it's dryer lint mice whatever the case may be i've seen all kinds of situations use that cable clamp connector and when you're snugging it down bringing that wire into the box just a quarter inch inside the box that that is actually code but when you're snugging snugging that clamp down don't death grip it you can actually short the internal wiring because this is a metal clamp on a lightweight insulation so snug it down you want to get to the point where you can no longer move the wire in and out by hand and really no more than that that's it i'm going to match my hole gauge to my wire gauge to get a good clean strip that doesn't damage my conductors i'm sharing in neutral on this multi-wire branch circuit so i'm going to include all of them in that joint my box is grounded with a green ground screw in there all my grounds are going to be made up together as well grounding is common on this circuit and this is my hot feeding up to the outlet now quick note grounds can always be common in a junction box you can put them all together and if you have a metallic junction box you want to ground the junction box so rule of thumb is don't share neutrals unless you know exactly what's happening this multi-wire branch circuit because of how the circuits are landed at the panel is going to prevent overloading so i've got my big boys here for my solar energy projects i'm going to pre-t twist the wiring to me there's no debate pre-twist pre-twist pre-twist i'm going to get about three good wraps on that i want a good clean tight finish and i don't want any exposed copper on this hot conductor i want a fully insulated installation i want to wait until i feel it snug up and these conductors start to twist back on themselves and i'm not going the handyman route here i'm not wrapping with electrical tape this is a code compliant properly installed electrical connection at the end i'm going to tuck them all into the box here i'll just leave it hanging there for right now now i've got my grounds together and i'm going to tuck them out of the way start on my neutrals on that pre-twist i'm going to match up the ends again be real real methodical i'm going to give this [Music] so i'm gonna cap my hot conductor that's coming in and being unutilized at this point this one's not fed so i'm tucking these out of the way so that and they're properly capped so it's safe so i can energize this circuit so when we turn this on the circuit will energize and that includes the red this black's getting no juice so we're safe and we're going to be inside the junction box fully covered up now because i've got a clamp in this box coat allows up to 12 inches along the length of the wire from the box for that staple to be secured i'm going to come up above the knot and below that knot that's really hard in this old growth wood to drive these little lightweight staple nails into those knots so i'm gonna avoid those bring it up secure it in oh there it is guys you know what i'm good to go we'll leave it right there so now we're back upstairs we're going to put the outlet and finish off the install here one thing to note on these plastic boxes they actually just have these tabs here don't destroy the tabs just just pop them open so you can get the wire in there and that's not going to grab nearly as well as the metal clamp but it is code compliant and it's all you really need one thing i've done too because i have so much wall thickness here i've backed off my screws to the very extreme of the clamp so that i really i want to make sure that those tabs open up and they've got the clearance to do that so i get a good grab it's all too easy for one of those tabs to get caught and not fully open all right that felt real good and what you're feeling for there is you can actually feel that lever give that quarter turn stop quarter turn stop so i know that it's opening all the way and then i'm snugging down i'm gonna remove a little bit of surface material right there that's gonna that's gonna fight me from getting a good tight fit then i'm snugging down and not death grip again it's just these plastic tabs that are holding it in there you'll definitely feel it i wouldn't recommend a power tool at this point too aggressive all right again i'm using my 12 gauge strip hole about three quarters of an inch and there are different ways of doing this i'm going to grab with my needle nose and bend it over there's also a hole on here which is not my preferred method but some of y'all gonna shout it out there it is three quarters of an inch make sure that copper isn't scarred or damaged at this point i'm going to use my number one square drive robertson screwdriver this seats so well to my receptacle and i'm not going to be stripping or dancing around on the device itself so at this point i'm going to wrap my ground clockwise all of these are going to be clockwise terminations because clockwise is righty tidy and i want that screw to pull my wire into it then my neutral silver terminal for neutral wire it is polarized this is a polarized device i don't want to switch that i've got a plastic box so i'm really not worried about my other unused terminal screws but i'm going to go ahead and snug it down and same thing on this side black brass b2b i can utilize either terminal screw and i'm going to snug it i'm looking for about 15 inch pounds this is not a torx screwdriver but i don't i don't go that far for an application like this we know how to do that right yeah and then tuck not stuff wires into the box i do want to make sure that that ground wire does not accidentally come into contact while i'm stuffing with my hot terminal that has happened it'll trip out the circuit i want to keep it tucked away from my hot terminal i'm going to gently gently fold it keeping an eye everything looks good so here here's a couple things going on right here one i do have to have a ground screw with my box two i'm going to show you that i can utilize the receptacle as it comes or in some cases the remodel box is out so far that i'm actually going to grab my receptacle change tools i'm going to break it across that score line right there twist it back and forth back and forth and what that's going to do for me flatten that back out i really don't have to do this but you might in order to get a real flush fit what that's going to do for me is it's going to allow this yoke to seat between the stubs to get a real tight flush finish fit so that the receptacle plate sits flush and it's not gapped out from the wall righty tighty driving it in make sure it's flush to the box and vertical next up we're going to test our work the job is never done until you test your work you'll see the outlet tester on top is standard doesn't take any batteries pretty cheap one on the bottom actually gives a voltage readout it's only a few bucks more link for both in the description below so this turned out real clean but if you're having trouble with alignment check out this video right here for more answers

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 370,515

Keywords: old work electrical box, wiring a new outlet, adding an outlet to an existing circuit, home electrical wiring basics

Id: K5M2UitBFkQ

Length: 26min 2sec (1562 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021