How To Fix Sunken Outlet | 2 Easy Options

there's a very common problem i run into in both old homes like this one which was built in 1904 or even a newer home that you just put some backsplash up and now you have outlets or light switches that are sunken back into the wall and it just doesn't look good this can also be a safety issue and you might now be out of code compliance so there is the easy way to fix this and there is also the safe way that you might need to consider depending on your scenario and sometimes these are actually used in combination with each other depending on your situation so let's go ahead and take the wall plate off and show you what is the root cause of this type of issue in addition i'll give you a few other tips along the way which hopefully will help you navigate your specific scenario and make this a one trip to the hardware store project for you so let's jump into it so go ahead and remove the wall plate and now that we're opening things up obviously we want the power to be off so i've hit the circuit breaker and i'll confirm that with my outlet tester no it leds lighting up for the bottom and the top so we're good to go so the two things going on here which is causing my problem is one the box is offset too far in now this might originally been set incorrectly when the house was rewired years back or the wall has been modified over time and then that has built out the surface on boxes such as this like a new workbox you have reference tabs on the bottom and top which would set against the stud and that's going to give you a 3 8 of an inch offset protruding past the stud so when you put your drywall on your outside surface is only going to be sunken in 1 8 of an inch and that's going to give you the finished look you want but additionally if you're doing backsplash you can offset with these reference marks these reference marks are 1 8 of an inch so it starts off at a quarter inch then it goes to 3 8 then it goes half then it goes 5 8 and that's going to be on your side and you also have those on the top for your reference so the additional issue is even with a sunken in box these tabs on your outlets or light switches will catch the outside surface but if you have an overcut situation like this where it's just really sloppy how the drywall was cut around the box now the tabs have nothing to hold on to so thus your outlet is sunken in so i'm going to show you how to install those spacers to get this where we want it but also touch on code compliance and safety where you might need that insert you can get these strips of spacers at pretty much any home improvement store or you'll see a link in the description where you can pick some up off of amazon each spacer that be considered one spacer is 1 8 of an inch thick and then they're stackable so that would be a quarter of an inch 3 8 of an inch and so on and then that puts the opening on the same side so you can go ahead and insert that right around the top and bottom mounting screws now i wouldn't go crazy with these i would not go half inch it would not go 5 8 of an inch you really want to cap out at about a quarter of an inch maybe 3 8 of an inch depending on what you're working with if you had to offset with spacers more than that and you had a large opening like this i would consider with a metal blade on a sawzall cutting the top and bottom mounting screw on that box and then putting a old work box in and i forgot the brand name but there's old work boxes with two mounting screws from the inside so you could remove this re-run your romex through the back of the the old work box position that correctly and then screw your two mounting screws to your stud and then that's going to get your box in the correct positioning so you're not spacing that out and having all this exposed material which can be against code depending on your area all right so let me back these two mounting screws out so we can put our spacers on the top and bottom now one of those additional tips is these mounting screws are just standard number 632 so if you ever needed longer or just new mounting screws because they're stripped out or you lost some i recommend grabbing a bag such as this i get two inchers why i get two inchers because i really don't want to carry one and a quarter one and a half two inches i just want to carry two inchers with me so i always have one that can work and then i just use my wire strippers and if you ever notice you'd see 8-32 and 6-3 pretty much on any wire stripper out there now with this one all you'd have to do is insert that in put it to your correct depth that you'd like to shorten that bolt with a little pressure you'll go ahead and just snip that off and then you have your newly sized bow and clean threads these wire strippers actually cut really clean and you do not have to thread the bolt in and out which i know is a feature on some others if you want to see what other products that i'm using what are the products i recommend over time which is always expanding and changing you can look down the description and we actually have an amazon store where we always keep that updated and you'll see our electrical or plumbing or general tools just for your reference as you build out the tool set for your diy projects but back to getting this space so all i do is fold over i want a quarter inch spacer so i'd rip that off and then i do another one and rip that off then i like to keep the opening facing the bottom so both on top and bottom i'm going to insert that spacer so the opening is facing down and that just helps hold that on there so hopefully it doesn't fall off or get misaligned as i tighten up the screws then i just line things up and tighten it back down so now we have a secure outlet and also do a dry fit on this wall plate and overall it's looking much better once we tighten that down it's pretty much going to be perfectly flush and it's going to give us our finished product that we're looking for one other note before we jump into the insert and why you might need that for code compliance and safety is you can start to see this over cut peeking out past the wall plate now a lot of us would like to avoid the drywall repair that might need to be done so just remember they do make larger wall plates this one is 3 8 of an inch longer and wider so just that additional width and length is going to give you the coverage you need for a nice fit and finish work even when something is as grossly over cut as this was i don't necessarily recommend it but they even have monster jumbo plates which are three quarters of inch longer and wider and that starts to get a little excessive but if you need it in a pinch without doing drywall you don't have the paint match i get it this might also help you out now i'm going to back these screws back out and show you how to use that insert and why to use that insert so in most areas code would limit the amount of non-combustible light drywall material that's exposed to one quarter of an inch so even on this instance i'm really right at that maximum if it goes past that that is where you need a wall insert right and what that wall insert is going to do it's going to encapsulate the outlet especially the hot side so that additional material that would be exposed to those screw terminals is limited now it's encapsulated and you don't have in this case non-combustible or in another case if you have let's say wall paneling wood wall paneling well you cannot have any wood wall paneling exposed how i know that is because i've done videos in the past where i had wall paneling exposed and many of the commenters called me out on it and they were correct that should not be exposed and i should have used a insert like this to make sure it's code compliant and that it's safe so in this case there's nothing too fancy with installing those inserts and often depending on how much length you have of your wire you can just install those without undoing any of your screw terminals and then you're going to put your mounting screws through the two slots and as i said before this really isn't going to give me too much more material to catch on my drywall and since i have such a large overcut i will use the combination of spacers and this insert to get everything lined up so now you can see the safety value where our terminals are encapsulated in this insert and no longer are they exposed to any material on the side now to finish this off i am going to use that larger wall plate just to make sure i don't have any openings peeking out now if you guys could do me a favor i really appreciate jump down the comments and let me know what was new information for you what did you learn in this video this is going to help me understand you more as i try to continue to increase the value of these videos for you long term and speaking of information check out this video right here it's gonna be a rapid fire 10 things you might not know about a common outlet so thanks for joining me on this video and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 215,194

Keywords: outlet pushed into wall, outlet loose in wall, light switch pushed into wall, sunken light switch

Id: ww6huRWr_YI

Length: 10min 17sec (617 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 18 2022