Alright gentlemen, let’s get straight to the point here. At some point in your life, you’re gonna have a faulty plug socket in your wall that needs fixing. Time to call an electrician right? WRONG! We don’t have to get all engineery here, but replacing a socket is a pretty quick and straightforward process that you can do yourself in a couple minutes.
NOTE: This is not a guide on how to add/make a new socket in your house from scratch. Get an electrician for that.
STEP #1 : Get Yourself a Socket
Head to your nearest hardware or electrical store, whatever you got, and buy a nice socket. You can get all kinds of sockets nowadays; a standard one like the one pictured here, or a fancy one with USBs or multiple sockets, the process remains essentially the same. Just make sure to get one that fits the one you have or are replacing.
STEP #2 : Switch off the Electricity
Safety first my friends.
Go to your circuit breaker in the house – or in the basement, or on the roof, or in the back outside – and SWITCH OFF the electricity to the area with the faulty socket. If you don’t know which switch is for which, now would be a decent time to find out. Or just switch everything off if you’re feeling particularly lazy.
STEP #3 : Remove the Faulty Socket
It’s time to begin! Using a screwdriver (usually a flat-head screwdriver), remove/unscrew the existing socket and pull it out enough to expose the wires connected to it. Note the three different types of wires:
Live Wire – The brown or red wire
Neutral Wire – The blue or black wire
Earth Wire – The green and/or yellow wire
NOTE: Your socket may or may not have an earth wire depending on your region and how they initially set up the wiring in your place.
If you have a voltage tester, you can use it on the live wire (make sure you touch the copper wire, not the coloured casing) to make sure that no current is flowing.
Unscrew the sections for the respective wires to remove the wires from the socket.
Note the markings for the live wire (L) and neutral wire (N). Earth wire may not always be displayed.
STEP #4 : Replace the Faulty Socket with Your New One
Once you’ve manage to remove the wires from the socket attachment, you just have to now to do the process in reverse.
- Place live, neutral and earth wires (earth wire is not required, but recommended for safety reasons) into their respective slots (as pictured above)
- Tighten/screw down the wires into place
- Screw back socket onto the wall
- Switch the electricity back on via the circuit breaker you switched off earlier and ensure socket is working.
STEP #5 : Bask in the Glory of Your Manly Achievement
Well done! If you have successfully managed to replace the socket, you are now one step manlier and a whole lot more useful and skilled in life. Keep it up my friends. No socket can hold you back! Unless uhh it’s some crazy type.