Unswitch a switched outlet?

In my bathroom, the light and only outlet (both top & bottom receptacles) are controlled by a switch. The wiring to the outlet is one black wire to one side, one white wire to the other side, and the ground wire. The light switch wiring is much older (one white, one black in lacquered cloth sheath, no ground). I would like to convert the outlet to hot all the time (w/ GFCI) to allow for a small shelf stereo with presets and a clock. I suspect the only way to achieve this is to rewire or add another outlet with a new leg. What would be the easiest way to achieve an always on outlet?

Reply to
RedStateBlues
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Ask one of your blue state friends. I think they have a new social program for answering electrical problems.

Reply to
Matt

If you want to keep the switch to control the light you would need to run another wire to the outlet. The easiest way would be to find a nearby "always on" outlet in the same wall (perhaps on the other side of the wall in the next room) and run new wires from that outlet to the bathroom outlet.

DISCLAIMER: Don't try this if you don't understand basic house wiring and appropriate safety.

Reply to
Dave

If you are needing to ask, I think you should get an electrician involved.

You have a 110v hot lead available coming to the switch. The switch stops and starts the black wire on the way to the recep and whatever else may be controlled by that switch. The recep apparently has a white neutral now. Does the switch do anything else? or just turn that recep on and off.

I suspect that the switch is a "switch leg" going up to operate a light fixture. If this is true, then the switch wiring has no neutral. Again I suspect that someone wired from the light fixture to the recep. It should be possible to find the leads serving the recep now and locate a hot that is not switched. You can change out the existing duplex to a GFI recep assuming you can find a cover plate to accommodate the switch and recep

(top posted for your convenience) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keep the whole world singing . . . . DanG (remove the sevens) snipped-for-privacy@7cox.net

Reply to
DanG

RSB,

Some of the walls of your bathroom with have another room on the other side. Do you have any "always on" outlets on the opposite side of those walls? If so, then it should be easy to install an outlet in the bathroom opposite the outlet in the next room.

There are many other solutions, but I'd really rather not get into them. I feel that you may need both a book on introductory home wire plus a mentor. I'm not trying to be nasty; just realistic. If you want to do your own wiring, then you really need to spend some time learning the basics.

Gideon

Reply to
Gideon

As I understand it you have 2 conductors at the receptacle location and 2 conductors at the switch location. You are missing some wires and they may be in the electrical box supporting the light fixture.

Open up the light fixture. If you see a total of six conductors in addition to any grounding conductors, then you may have an easy fix to your problem.

2 conductors should be your feed hot and neutral. Two conductors should be going to the receptacle. The last two should be going to the switch.

The receptacle already has a neutral so there is no need to touch that connection. What you need to do to get the receptacle hot all of the time is remove the receptacle hot conductor from the switched wire that is connected to the light and connect it on to the hot wire feed. That should make the receptacle hot all of the time. You can then change the receptacle to a GFCI type.

Of course this all depends if the feed, switch legs, and receptacle feed all go into the same box. There are other possibilities, but without additional information it is difficult to describe a procedure. If the feed is not in the light fixture box, then there must be another junction box somewhere that has all of these connections.

John Grabowski

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Reply to
John Grabowski

John,

The light fixture is actually a medicine cabinet with a 20 watt flourescent bulb fixture on each side. Short of taking off the plates under each bulb fixture, I'm not sure of a way of diagnosing the wiring to and from this unit. This cabinet unit also has its' own single outlet and a light switch. I suppose I could just leave the main light switch on and control the lights by the cabinets' own switch, but the cabinet switch is on the far side of the cabinet with respect to the door entry of the bathroom. Plus, I'd also have to either bypass the main light switch or inelegantly tape it 'on' to prevent visitors from shutting off the switch, killing the power to the stereo memory.

Reply to
RedStateBlues

It is not likely that all of the wires terminate in the medicine cabinet, but one never knows what was going through the mind of the original installer.

I would take a look around to find that junction box. It is possible that it is buried in the wall somewhere though. If there is an attic above the bathroom or a basement below I would look there for a junction box. If no luck in those places, try shutting the circuit breaker for the bathroom circuit off. Then open up the switches and outlets that went off nearest the bathroom to see if all of your wires are terminated in one of them.

To get a new feed into the receptacle box, you will need to fish a cable through the wall from the basement or attic after drilling a hole in the appropriate spot. If you're lucky there may be, as someone else mentioned, a receptacle on the backside of the wall where the bathroom receptacle is. You can fish a cable from there.

John Grabowski

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Reply to
John Grabowski

Reply to
RBM

Unless you are willing to hire an electrician to clean up your mess, you don't want to get involved in running a new cable. Those with 20 years of experience forget how difficult it is.

However, you might have a very easy fix. Find that junction box everyone was talking about. It probably has 4 cables going to it; one to the breaker box, one to the switch, one to the outlet, and one to the lights. The black from the breaker will be connected to the black going to the switch. The white from the switch will be connected to the black going to the blacks going to the light and the outlet. Does that make sense? By moving the outlet black from after the switch to before the switch, it will always be hot.

I think you have about a 50% chance of finding it like that. Good luck.

Reply to
toller

Top posting is only for the convenience of the person posting who is too lazy to properly edit down the post they are replying to.

Usenet does have Netiquette. (It has had for years.) Your reply should be in a question-answer format. Everybody I know reads from top to bottom.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Reply to
Don Wiss

Reply to
Dr. Hardcrab

The respondent who said "if you don't know, you need an electrician" was mostly right. If not an electrician at least someone very familiar with house wiring.

There are 2 poles on the switch. If there is only 1 wire connected to each pole, you are likely in trouble unless you can easily get inside the wall to rewire. Seems likely the hot wire from the switch runs to the light and then continues to the receptacle (on the same circuit).

Do you take hot showers in the winter? If so, you might want to think twice about a bath stereo. The steam -may- commit unnatural acts with the audio equipment. :-)

In a similar situation some years ago, the easiest way for me was to "add another outlet with a new leg". I managed to fish the wall enough to install a gfci in a Wiremold receptacle box. Works fine maybe 12 years now.

Best O' Luck, Puddin'

****************************************************** *** Puddin' Man PuddingDotMan at GmailDotCom *** ******************************************************;
Reply to
Puddin' Man

Sony makes a shower radio. It has five presets and a digital clock. It is designed to hang on the shower head, but could stand on a small shelf. It isn't stereo, but in such a small room you wouldn't get much stereo. My original C cells are still going strong after a couple years. Let me go get the model number... It is a TV/Weather/FM/AM 4Band Radio ICF-S79V. I purchased mine from the Sony web site. Putting the model number into Google I find it for $50 at Amazon.com. Several others also appear on the page.

Don (e-mail link at home page bottom).

Reply to
Don Wiss

TROLL

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Reply to
trollbuster

Why not just put the stereo in another room and run speaker wires to the bathroom. As for the clock, you can get a LCD battery operated clock for $5 almost anywhere and the batteries last at least a year.

If you MUST have an outlet, you are pretty much forced to tear up walls or run a whole new line from the breaker box.

Reply to
hiwayman

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