Replacing A Standard Outlet With A GFCI Outlet

hey what's up you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and progressing through some of the final steps to a small kitchen rehab project and one of those steps is updating the electrical all i'm going to do here is one i want to get rid of that almond colored slash painted purple outlet behind me but also this outlet is within six feet of the sink so at least in my area according to the national like electrical code or nec code this needs to be a gfci outlet opposed to a standard outlet so if there were to be a fault this trips and it reduces or eliminates the risk of being electrocuted additionally this outlet is the first in a series or daisy chain of three outlets so putting the gfci here and then putting two standard outlets downstream this gfci will protect those other two outlets as well so let's jump in and show you what tools you're going to need the tools that you need for this project are pretty simple two screwdrivers one phillips and one flathead i'd get a smaller flathead it's going to be easier to work with the screws if you do you need a wire stripper so for any wires that we need to cut off or strip new and then critical is a voltage tester you want to be as safe as possible doing this so yes you're going to hit the circuit breaker to cut the power but you always want to be able to double check i really like this one because it's an effective tester but it also has a small light which comes in pretty handy because often when you're doing electrical work you're cutting power and that would cut power to the lights in your area as well so it's always nice to have whether it's a headlamp or additional lights you can find the links for these down in the description if you want to see exactly which ones i'm using so now i'm going to remove that outlet and then start to show you how to wire in the new one first up we want to make sure there's no power coming to this box so we'll use our voltage tester and test all around the outlet and within the box to make sure nothing is showing that it's active or getting power once that's confirmed we can remove the outlet and actually look at the wiring and seeing what we're dealing with specifically this setup has two pigtails the red one here which is hot yours is most likely black which is a more common color for the hot side now taking that ground off i didn't want to snip it because it actually is pretty short already so i want to save it at the length it is taking those wire nuts off i need to actually break all these wires off and take those pigtails out why i'm doing that is because i want the line the power line coming in to go through gfi gfci outlet but also i want the two load lines to come through there now confirming which one is the load line i turn the circuit back on carefully testing to see which red wire there it is is showing power what that will confirm is this is my line so you'll see on the back of the gfci it's it's labeled line and load this one is my line and now getting back to the box turning the circuit off just making sure again no power before i start to wire this in now i'll straighten all these wires out i don't have a lot of extra so i don't want to snip them off and then restrip them i'm just going to straighten them out and that's because we'll be pushing those into the back of the you'll see those holes there pushing them in the back and then tightening down the screws and we'll start with this line side which we just confirmed which wires those were now we do need access to the load side so you gotta take that label off and we'll be using all four of those holes overall this is pretty straightforward you're just going to push the stripped wire into the hole and then make sure that it is tight with a pull test after you tighten the screw then we'll just repeat the same thing on the neutral side so making sure that it's fully inserted into the hole and then tightening that screw down ending with the pull test that finishes up the line side of the solid and then now we'll move on to the load side which is going to have four wires that's two red wires which are the hot wires and two white or neutral wires that will need to insert in it's going to be the same process but you need to insert both wires into the hot side before tightening but let's take a closer look how does this work those holes there you'll see you'll insert the wire in but you need to make sure that little plate inside is down so you push the wire in and then you'll start to tighten the screw which will pull the plate in clamping the wire into place and making a solid connection so the hots are completed and then we'll do that same thing inserting both of the neutrals in and these are kind of the tightest part of it because one of those is pretty short so i get those in place secure the screw down and then that will be it for the hot and neutral side of the outlet so we'll just finish up with the ground wire get that tightened down and now all the wires are securely fastened and in place and all we have to do is now mount or or put the gfci within the box itself when you have this many wires going into one outlet it is a bit to get the outlet straightened out and in place so take your time you can kind of push those wires around inside the box but go easy you do not want to damage the insulation which could cause an issue inside the box so i'll tighten it down partially and start to straighten out the outlet centering it up but then also making sure that it's not crooked inside the box then once you get in place do your final tightening make sure the plate fits as desired looks good so cinch down the outlet and everything looks good so we'll tighten down the cover plate and then hitting the circuit breaker and resetting we'll do the test and we see there's power before we finish up and before i change out these outlets i just want to confirm that they have power and the wirings correct to the gfci which it is and we're good to go so that's it as you saw my wiring situation might be a little different than yours so if you have any questions i do encourage you to jump down in the comments and i will help you out as best i can and we'll try to get through your situation also in the description you'll see the voltage tester and the other tools for your reference that we used in this video don't forget to subscribe to our channel as we have weekly videos like this coming out to help you with your repairs around the house and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 315,365

Rating: 4.9201951 out of 5

Keywords: gfci outlet wiring, gfci in series, gfi outlet wiring, kitchen gfci outlet, home repairs, home improvement, everyday home repairs

Id: 7aHeRgpfQhE

Length: 7min 37sec (457 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020