How to Add a Receptacle to a Lighting Circuit

this video is for educational purposes only and only competent persons with a permit should attempt this installation hey this feel for Sparky Channel and today I'm going to show you how to add a receptacle to an existing lighting circuit and first thing you've got to do is secure a permit any time you add a receptacle you're gonna have to get a permit because I'm gonna want to know that you're not overloading the circuit and causing a fire hazard so what you got to know is what amperage is your circuit in this case this is a 20 amp circuit and this is a 12-2 with ground cable cabling coming in through this circuit so 20 amps you multiply that by 0.8 which gives you 16 useable amps which is considered to give you safe amperage load for that circuit this 50 right here is 100 watts and the bulb is 5 watts so wish to use for permit purposes do you use the 100 watt fixture or the 5 watt bulb so the 100 watt fixture would be a hundred divided by 120 that's a 100 watts that's what the fixture is divided by 120 volts that I gave you a point 8 3 amps that's the usage you figure to get your permit and maybe just got a few of these so we could probably get a permit for a standard use receptacle now if you're gonna put in a microwave right here they probably won't let you do it but it's so it depends what you're putting in here so I think it's better to run 12 gauge 20 amp circuits everywhere in a house this is my personal opinion because you can add things like receptacles later on more easily so once you've secured your permit that's let's show you how to do it see this is a live switch right here and it's turning on up the light so we're gonna go over how you go from the switch box to the receptacle and get a receptacle that's hot all the time and the first thing we'd like to do is check and see if the voltage sensor is working and there you go this is the line that's bringing the electrical energy end of the circuit C so it's testing hot so we know that our voltage detector is working just properly now we're going to turn on the light and we're going to turn off the circuit breaker okay so now we have an excellent indication that we've turned off the correct circuit because the light went off and also I'm no longer getting a hot signal on this cable right here so we have two excellent indications that the circuit is off so I'm gonna go ahead and pop this off this is called a screwless wallplate there's no screws showing on the top here make another check right here make sure there's no electricity no you wanna make sure all the electricity is off when you're working on the circuit these are actually mud plates they'll be putting the bud plate on this - when I put in a receptacle and the reason I like to use mud plates is that way I can use a double gag box which gives you more room and also it adds visibility for your viewers once again I'll check now and get readout the wires check everything and make sure it's off okay first I'm going to take off the ground wire and the ground wire looks on right here and it goes to this wiggle lever nut so I'm just going to take this off right here and pull it out so our ground is disconnected now and now I'll just loosen up these two wires here take that off you take that off here's our switch I'll be using that in just a moment okay I have wire connectors on all the various wires for safety I'm going to turn the circuit breaker back on ya I'm gonna make a test with the faulty sensor okay this is the wire that's bringing the energy into the box it's the one that's hot all the time okay I've marked the wire that's hot all the time with some red tape and I'm gonna make one more test I'm gonna see what kind of voltage we have so I'm gonna put my probe right in there and right in here and we have a hundred and twenty point eight volts so we have a good strong voltage and take this and put it on the ground a ground wire and we see where we have 120 point eight once again so we have a nice strong ground so we have a good strong voltage and a good strong ground coming into this system so we're doing real well now I'm going to turn off the circuit breaker and we can once again check and you see we've got zero volts so the voltage is off so we found out that this hot wires hot all the time and we found out that the circuits off right now we have now installed a 12-2 with ground cable and that's what you're going to need to go from the switch box to the new receptacle box okay so let's get this sorted out this is your cable it comes in to the box that brings the power and energy to the box it's got a ground wire that goes to it this is called a juego never net and it goes to there so this is our power cable right here you call it a line cable and this right here is a load cable it goes to the light the light is the load so this is line and this is load and this is also load it's going over to this receptacle which is another load just two loads right here we're going to take the ground wire and add it to our five conductor Waco lever net and we'll push this back in to the back of the box we're going to need a neutral serving this receptacle box so I'm going to connect all these neutrals together this is the one that goes to this receptacle box that's the one bringing the energy into the box this is the light load wire right here so I'm just gonna use a three conductor wiggle the lever nut just push them all together like that that's two and that's three like that and you can always check make sure they're in there good on the back you can look at it and check it out so we're just going to push this back into the back of the box our switch isn't going to need a neutral but we do need to have neutral over here okay so we've got the grounds and the neutrals back in the back of the box now we need this to be hot all the time so we're going to take this off of here we're going to take this off of here so this is the hot wire that brings that electro energy into the box this is the wire that goes over to the receptacle box so we're gonna hook these together like that and like that okay here's the switch it says top right up here and it's got one terminal on this side one terminal on this side so we got one terminal going to the light and we have this terminal right here which is also going to go to the switch this will bring power to the switch and this brings power to the light in a switched manner so and we got the ground we have to add the ground right back here let's go ahead and put it right in there in my hand down way you put the ground right in there close it up on the wiggle lever night push that back push the neutrals back back there so I've pushed this way go lever not over on this side that way we have the wire coming out on this side see I got this wire on this side this wire on this side I have the ground down here low C so I'm gonna take and put this right in here and I'm going to tighten this down securely okay normally I would put the mud ring over the receptacle a little earlier but the longer I wait to put the mud ring on the better you're able to see all the wearing okay so go ahead and put this in and when you put these in it goes right there okay does it you don't put the insulation in under here you don't have any copper show it goes right there okay then we're gonna tighten this down securely all right we're doing good okay so we have wire that's hot all time we have a good neutral we have a good ground and this by the way is a bonding wire that bonds the metal box to the grounding system of the house one thing you do with a 20 amp circuit is you put in a 20 amp receptacle these are very high-quality receptacles and both these devices are called specification kraid that's good enough for government work literally if you work on government projects you're not allowed to put any device and their project that isn't specification crane so these are marked on here spec grade and first we'll do the grounds so we're gonna need one two and we're getting a pigtail for the device so I'm using a three conductor Lego never net and there's two to make a pigtail all you need is a piece of wire I use the 12 gauge wire and strip little hand on it there put it in the wiggle whatever nut or whatever kind of wire connector you're using I'm going to be putting the receptacle this way with the ground down so I'm going to put the wiggle we'll ever met and the bottom of the box and this will come right out and we'll attach the green ground wire to the green grounding terminal okay so notice I have the white wire over here and the black wire over here ready to go ok so you take the white wire you put it right in there like that just right ok tighten down the neutral wire that goes on the silver terminal with the T shaped sideways t-shaped slots there and now we have the hot wire goes right there I'm going to type that down real nicely ok that's real good and I've already got some black electricians tape wrapped around this switch now I'm going to put some black electricians tape around this receptacle for safety you put it right around the terminals like that we've got those all wrapped up before I put the mud rings on then let's go over the wiring here so we have all the ground wires grip back on the back of the box the ground wires the for the wires come in the wires going over through sets cool the wires going to the light and the one going to the switch there all right back here in the back that's a way go never nut v conductor and all five are filled up there and here's your neutrals right here there's three there's one here one coming from this cable one coming from this cable one coming from this cable they're all hooked together and it goes right over here there's your neutral right there and your hot wires all get can connect it together here except the one that goes to the light the one that goes the lights right here and it goes to the bronze-colored terminal and then we got this one which is hot all the time so we got the wires hot all the time coming here and this side is the wire that's hot in a switched manner for the light so that's a overview there of what we were doing so we get the wires pushed in here we're gonna start it and then I'm going to put the mud plates around okay so this one's one that turned this way a little bit so just give it a twist like that push it on in this one's twisting this way a little bit so before we tighten it up turn it the other way get it going guys and straight okay these are the backing plates for the screwless wallplate and here they are right here you put this little thing down this little recess down then just pop them on like that one that's two I have plugged in my outlet tester to their receptacle right here and I'm ready to turn on the circuit breaker oh that's good so we have two green lights on either side and that means that it's correctly wired you can check the bottom on two and so there pulls correctly wired let's try the right oh look at that okay the light works great it doesn't affect the receptacle when you're turning it on and off so this is hot all the time okay so the receptacle is hot all the time independent of whether the light is on or not and the light is working great so that's how you add a receptacle to a light circuit this is part of the ideal circuit breaker finder set so I'll put a link for this say this is a as a whole it has a whole manual here tell you exactly what's going on so that's your ideal circuit breaker finder set I'll put a link for that I'll put a link for my candy packs eight inch diagonal pliers is just wonderful and here's a tool that I'm really liking this is the brand new Klein 1000 volt insulated stripper and cutter and there have been working just great I really like them all I'll put a link for the fluke one one seven voltage meter and the fluke voltage sensor I'll put a link for Wego lever nuts for Levitan Decorah plus spec grade and receptacles and I'll put a link for the new Dewalt 12-volt max impact driver thanks I hope this video was helpful [Music]

Channel: Sparky Channel

Views: 293,806

Keywords: IDEAL, Leviton, Adding a receptacle, receptacle, switch, receptacle on a lighting circuit, lighting circuit, Insulated Side Cutter Pliers, Circuit Breaker Finder, True RMS Multimeter, Decora Plus, Electrical Outlet, Outlet, Electrical permit, Sparky Channel, Sparky, Electrical wiring, wiring, spec grade, new Kleins, new Dewalts, Diagonal Cutters, electrical tools, tools, Lighting Circuit, Add a Receptacle

Id: A2t2EH3IhlE

Length: 17min 9sec (1029 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020