How To Replace An Old 2 Prong Outlet Using 3 Prong GFCI

how's it going you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and today i want to quickly show you how to solve an issue that's probably been plaguing you for a while and that is if you live in an older house you might have two-pronged receptacles which are just a pain in the butt and unsafe to work with to solve that you might be using one of these adapters that takes a three-prong and gives you that two-prong and it has an additional small strap here that actually some people screw in so the screw for the face plate right in the center here then screw that in now that's not creating a ground because there is no equipment ground coming to this box so it's just an unsafe way to do it so let's get you upgraded to a three prong and do that safely this is called out in nec and down in the description i'll put a link there for your reference but all we're going to do is install a gfci receptacle which is the safe solution on how to upgrade this two-prong receptacle so let's jump in and get you upgraded so you're not fumbling around with these unsafe adapters and you have a safe three-prong receptacle to use in your house so the way we start off any of these electrical projects is to make sure we can safely work on this receptacle and there's no power going to that to do that i'm going to use a non-contact voltage tester i'm going to turn it on and i'm going to test this receptacle to know that my voltage tester is working and power's still going to this receptacle once i've confirmed that then i'll go hit my breaker to turn off power to this circuit then i'll come back in and with the same voltage tester i will test it again confirming there is no power going to this receptacle and once you do that now we're ready to install the gfci outlet i always start off with these old face plates by scoring the surface between the paint and the face plate then i undo the screw and carefully remove it to reduce any paint damage just double check in here to make sure that no power is going to the box then i'm removing the two mounting screws so i can pull the old two-prong receptacle out i will take a look at what we're dealing with and here you really only expect to see a neutral and a hot side so i am going to take my micro side cutters and then just cut that off clean so we can strip new copper for the gfci gfci and all receptacles really have a strip gauge that will show you how much copper you need to strip to properly install you can use the strip gauge like this to reference your line or what i do is i actually take my strippers and just get a reference on the stripper so i know i need to strip to the 14 gauge mark on my strippers take that mark pivot strippers and then strip that amount of insulation off so i'll do that on the neutral and on the hot side so we're ready to start wiring now you'll see we're only using the line portion of the gfci the load portions underneath this label for this instance will not be used gold goes to black which is hot and then white or the neutral line will go to the silver screw terminal now you'll put the straight strand of copper underneath the plate you do not need to make a j hook and then you'll tighten down the plate to make a secure connection so we did that for the hot side and now we'll just do the same thing for the neutral side underneath the plate making sure no exposed copper is going past the housing and then you're done now before placing a gfci outlet in the metal box because it's so tight actually going to wrap with 3m super 33 plus electrical tape best tape on the market and you can see the link in the description which will show you exactly what i use i'll do two wraps stretching electrical tape as i go on the outside and that will help bond the tape and also contour to the receptacle housing and then at the end instead of stretching it i will just cut that off with some micro side cutters because at the tail end of the tape you don't want to stretch it you actually just want to lay it back down and adhere it to the wrap just a couple more screws and we'll be done so we'll reinstall the mounting screws i work back and forth and then also make sure that the receptacle is centered so you don't get done tightened and it's kind of cockeyed in the box now once you have that tightened down we'll do a standard decora face plate and then tighten down both of the screws then we'll test it out so go hit your breaker back to the on position and we'll press the reset button testing with our voltage tester everything looks good also use an outlet tester where i only have the center led on which does mean open ground which is expected because of that nec does call out that we need to label a no equipment ground sticker on the faceplate and the sticker will be found in the gfci box so you can use it so not too bad right something you knock out pretty quickly and it's just so much more functional to have and save to have this gfci three prong so if there is a fault there this will actually trip it doesn't have the ground return path which is ideal but if there is a fault it will trip because of the design of the gfci outlets now this was a very straightforward right two strands coming in neutral and hot into the box if that solved your problem awesome thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe before you take off now if you opened your electrical box uh and you just saw way more wires than what we showed here which were really just those two it's about as simple as it gets don't worry for one if you feel unsafe and you're uncertain call in a professional at least you know what you need now so you can walk them through exactly what you're looking for hopefully get that done in a timely manner for a reasonable cause but i will mention that if you have multiple receptacles in a room and they're daisy chained together one after another there is a possibility where you can install one gfci at the start and then you can take the load lines from the gfci which we talked about we did not use right and then connect a normal receptacle downstream of the gfci and it still is protected by the gfci and is still following nec code even though it will look like a normal receptacle opposed to a gfci now again getting a little more complex but i just wanted to let you know that if you have three or four receptacles in a room there is a possibility if you install a gfci at the starting receptacle that you could just install standard receptacles at the other two or three and you would be covered now you still will need to label that there's no equipment ground on that face plate to follow any seat now if you have any questions jumping down in the comments and myself or many of the viewers who are very active would be happy to help you and at least give our two cents but be safe and we'll catch you on the next video take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 1,129,212

Keywords: old 2 prong outlets, 3 prong gfci

Id: qrtyUuL-eRw

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 01 2021