DIY in our house is mainly used to repair damaged elements and on many occasions to renew the decoration of the house. For both things, it will help us to know the simple steps that we have to take to be able to disassemble and assemble a socket outlet .
Safety before mounting a socket
The first step we have to take is to cut off the electricity that affects that plug. In modern houses it is not necessary to cut off all the current in the house, as there are different independent circuits. What we have to do is lower the automatic corresponding to the socket bases and which is usually 16 amps (16A). If in doubt, we can use a small electrical appliance to check if the plug has power before working on it.
Disassemble and assemble the plug
Next we will have to unscrew the outer part of the plug and remove the trim that surrounds it, in order to access the plug mechanism .
The socket itself is screwed into a box made of plastic material, which in turn is fixed to the wall. What we need to do is unscrew the plug mechanism from that box, usually by removing two screws. Once we have removed these screws we can remove the plug as the cables usually have enough slack.
Once we have the plug out of the box, we can access the terminals where the cables are screwed. In modern houses we should find at least 3 cables of different colors:
– Blue: neutral wire .
– Brown/Black/Grey: phases
– Green-Yellow: protection
The important thing is to be clear about where we had the cables screwed. The blue and some of the phases will screw into the sides of the plug as they need to be in contact with the pin entry area. The protective one is screwed in a different position. It is very useful to take a photo of the connections in the initial plug and then repeat in the new one.
With these fundamental rules it is easy both to renew the socket outlets in a room, and to check the operation of the ones we already have.
