There may be several reasons why you might need to relocate an outlet. The most common of these are:
- The need to connect additional consumers, for the supply of which it is undesirable or not very convenient to use extension cords.
- Moving sockets to a greater height in order to protect young children from electric shock.
- Consolidation of outlets.
- Rearrangement of furniture in the room or change of interior.
Do-it-yourself work on moving an outlet is not very difficult, either technically or organizationally. However, since you have to deal with electrical wiring elements, you should ensure the maximum level of electrical safety. You need to clearly understand the sequence of actions.
In order to figure out how to move the outlet to a new place, you should know in general terms the principle of the home electrical network, as well as the design and connection features of its elements such as plug sockets.
Consequences of incorrect installation
Incorrect or poorly performed work at any stage of the installation of such devices can lead to undesirable consequences. The most common of these are:
- Unreliable fixation of the working part of the device in the socket.
- Overheating of contacts, as well as melting or ignition of the dielectric parts of the case.
- The occurrence of a short circuit when connecting power to the outlet.
- Sparking or breakage (burning out) of electrical contacts.
Possible options for transferring the outlet
Before moving the outlet, you should find out where the junction box is located, from which power is supplied, what material the wire of the old electrical wiring is made of, and also determine the new location for installing the outlet. These parameters will help to perform installation work with minimal labor and financial costs.
Laying a new line
The best option for transferring the outlet with your own hands is to lay the wire to the new installation location from the junction box. Unfortunately, this method in most cases requires large-scale repair work associated with wall chasing and laying new wires.
To improve the quality of the wire connection in the junction box, they can be crimped with metal sleeves or soldered. Such a connection is the most reliable and durable, but it cannot always be made due to the insufficient length of the conductors.
It is not possible to increase the wires connected by crimping without violating their integrity, so the socket wire is bitten off.
If the old wiring was laid in shallow grooves, then it is possible to remove the cable from the wall without much effort. Thus, you can get an almost finished strobe for laying a new wire.
In panel houses, the wiring is often laid in such a way that it is not possible to remove the cable from the concrete slab, in this case it is better to leave it in place, and to power the new outlet, lay a strobe from the junction box. To fix the cable in the prepared recess, alabaster or plastic clamps are used. When laying it, care should be taken to ensure that a small margin remains at both ends of the connection, allowing you to make high-quality electrical connections.
wire extension
To increase efficiency and simplify the work of relocating a socket, a method is often used in which the socket of an old socket is used as an additional junction box.In this case, it is enough to increase the already laid wire to the required length.
Most old houses still use aluminum wiring. As for modern requirements for its installation, copper conductors must be used to connect electrical appliances. Complete replacement of wiring is a rather complicated task, which may require significant material costs. In addition, the implementation of such work can only be carried out during a major overhaul.
You can build up an electrical wire using one of the following methods:
- Twisting.
- Weld or solder.
- Terminal blocks.
- Spring terminals.
- Bolted connection.
To connect conductors made of the same material, twisting with crimping or solder is used. To build up an aluminum wire with copper, terminal blocks or spring clips are used. At home, you can use a bolted connection with a steel washer.
Often situations arise when it is not possible to build a wire using twisting due to its insufficient length. In this case, connecting clips remain the only viable option.
When moving the outlet a short distance, the old socket box can be used as a junction box, in which you can extend the wires to the required length. Since access to this connection will be closed in the future, the quality of its implementation should be maximum. In addition, it is highly undesirable to have tight contact between the wire junctions and the putty material or other building mixture.
Advice! In order to protect yourself from malfunctions, you can use a drywall overlay, which is cut to the size of the socket and attached to it with liquid nails. A layer of putty is applied on top of the drywall.
Work order
When transferring the outlet with your own hands using any of these options, you must adhere to the following work order:
- Making a niche in the wall for installing a mounting box for a new outlet. To perform these works, a special crown is used, which is installed on a drill. In the event that there is a need for a one-time transfer of the outlet and no further work is planned to modernize the electrical wiring, then it makes no sense to purchase a crown, but you can drill a recess for the socket using an ordinary concrete drill or an angle grinder.
- Power outage at the input electrical panel. This step must be performed before removing the socket.
- Dismantling the old socket.
- The next stage of work depends on the method of transfer. If the new electrical connection point is connected by a wire laid to the junction box, then the old line is dismantled. If the new outlet will be connected to the network at the location of the old outlet, then you just need to extend the wire to the desired length.
- A new outlet is being installed and connected to the wires of the electrical network. In this case, the correct connection of the ground conductor is essential.
- The protective cover of the outlet is installed.
Thus, moving the outlet with your own hands is not particularly difficult. However, laying copper wires in apartments where aluminum wiring is used can only be considered as a temporary measure. In the future, when carrying out major repairs, a complete replacement of such wiring should be provided.
