Just a three pronged person, living in a two pronged world

This past weekend my roommate moved out of the house, so now it's just little ol' me all on my lonesome. Don't get me wrong, roommates are a lot of fun and I have had some great ones in all the different places that I lived. But I love having the place to myself, to do all the weird stuff I want without being judged. I mean I would do weird stuff before, but damn if my roommates didn't have to sit me down and ask if I was alright.

Alright to the point of the story. When Adam moved out, I decided to give up my basement bedroom (seductive fireplace with bearskin rug and all) to come live above ground and try to get some sunlight. However, it wasn't until I got moved into my new love bunker that I realized that all the outlets in the room were only two prong, old school outlets. This is not good, since all surge protectors have three prongs, the third circular prong on the bottom being the grounding wire. And if I can't plug in surge protectors, how am I suppose to charge all the things that keep me entertained? What am I gonna do read a book? I don't think so.

So my mission now was to replace all the outlets to three prong outlets. Now this is somewhat tricky, because to be legal and up to code, the outlets either have to be grounded, or have to replaced with a GFCI outlet. Now the good news and the bad news: you can check if the actual box the outlet sets in is grounded itself is grounded. Take a voltage tester, put one prong the longer slot and touch the other prong to the screw that holds the outlet cover on, if the indicator light turns on it means the box is grounded. But the bad part is that you will have to install a grounding wire to attach to the box. This isn't too difficult, just finicky. You can buy pre-made grounding wires with the screws already hooked on.

If the box isn't grounded, call an electrician and have them take a look. That is above my head for now.

The first step is to remove the old outlet. Now this should go without saying, but make sure the power is cut off to that outlet. As I have written about before, being electrocuted is probably one of the worst things to happen (unless you are into that kind of stuff then whatever, do it). Find the right breaker and flip it off, and double check the outlet with a tester to make sure there is nothing coming through it.

Once you remove the outlet, in the back of the metal box there should be a couple screw holes where you can attach the grounding wire. Screw it into the back and trim it up accordingly.

Now attaching the new outlet. If you recall my GFI post when I had to replace that, regular outlets work similarly in the terms of how you can string outlets together and run them off of each other. So you will see two hot (black) and two neutral (white) wires on each side. The back of the outlet should say which side the black wires go into and which side the white wires go, but a good thing to note is that one side will be brass screws and one side will have silver screws. Hot wires always attach to the brass screws. After you have those attached, attach your ground (green) wire to the green screw on the bottom, and voila! Make sure you tighten down all the screws onto the wires, and you are done.

Now the biggest pain in the ass part is jamming the outlet back into the box. Try to bend the wires so they will fold neatly. That way nothing gets messed up and you end up popping a wire off one of the screws.

Now a very important part. Go buy new outlet wall plates before you start this. The old two prong plates will not fit over a three pronged outlet. I lived for two days with exposed electrical outlets, which doesn't really give off the vibe "I have my life together".

A couple tools that you will need to help out are

• A voltage tester
• Some wire strippers
• A Phillips and flat head screwdriver
• Needle nose pliers (for bending the wire around the outlet screws)
• A three prong outlet tester

Once you have everything together, take the three prong outlet tester, and stick it in the outlet. The series of lights on the tester will tell you if it's wired correctly and if not, what is wrong with the wiring. 

Once you get the hang of replacing one, the rest go pretty easily. One other thing to note, you might want to keep your vacuum handy. If the house is older  the outlet boxes may be really dirty and dusty on the inside. So cleaning them out wouldn't be a bad idea. Just remember you can't plug it into any of the outlets connected to the breaker you turned off. 

So good luck, and remember if you do it wrong you will burn your entire house down. No pressure