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Electrians need your help re: swapping an outlet where top one is controlled by lightswitc

Posted on 3/12/19 at 10:24 am
Posted by CAD703X
Liberty Island
Member since Jul 2008
87484 posts
Posted on 3/12/19 at 10:24 am
First I've swapped around 55 outlets in my house so far (old yellow and brittle outlets swapping with high quality white ones)

So I got to the last 2 outlets yesterday only because our damn dog ate our couch and so we moved it to toss it and I decided to change them.

As always and because the top outlets of both are attached to a lightswitch I very carefully noted the wire configuration and in fact only removed one wire at a time and attached to the new outlet because I'm OCD.

Long story short, the switch no longer works. So I'm wondering if there's a 'special' type of outlet I should be looking for? The only differences I can see between old & new is:

* old used push connections, new i used the screws
* the screws on the new seem to have a single plate..? the old seems like the metal plate did not extend between both (make sense?) see image below.

so my guess is that the power is flowing to both outlets and maybe there's a special outlet out there where they are separated?

old outlet (see second pic where the metal plate doesn't extend to both screws)



Posted by idlewatcher
Planet Arium
Member since Jan 2012
87179 posts
Posted on 3/12/19 at 10:31 am to
Check to make sure it's a 2 pole or 3 pole switch. Otherwise, it won't work

Posted by CAD703X
Liberty Island
Member since Jul 2008
87484 posts
Posted on 3/12/19 at 10:36 am to
just to clarify i didnt touch the lightswitch and its worked since we moved in 4 years ago.

all i did was swap out the 2 outlets (above) and wired them exactly like the ones prior.
Posted by lnomm34
Louisiana
Member since Oct 2009
12702 posts
Posted on 3/12/19 at 11:00 am to
(no message)
This post was edited on 2/8/25 at 8:34 am
Posted by CAD703X
Liberty Island
Member since Jul 2008
87484 posts
Posted on 3/12/19 at 5:23 pm to
Oooooo! Well I was close ;)

Thanks
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