How To Wire A Light Switch Off An Existing Outlet

Put the light fixture to the side for the time being.

How to wire a light switch off an existing outlet. Finally connect the neutral and ground wire as shown in the fig. This splits the outlet so each half functions independently. Connect the hot wire to the other terminal. Rewire the existing electrical outlet connect the wires of the new cable to the existing wires.

Twist the white wires together and cap them and connect the ground wires to the ground terminal. Don t worry about which black wire goes where. Lastly remove the ground wire from the green screw. Twist the three wires together clockwise and screw on a wire cap then connect the short wire back to the switch.

Here is what you would have to do if possible change out the 2 wire to 3 wire cable from switch to light. The source hot at the switch is spliced with the red cable wire to the outlet and a pigtail to the switch. Start by taking your screwdriver and removing the two black wires attached to the light switch. Now take a jumper wire and connect between the switch load terminal and lower hot terminal on the line side as shown in fig below.

Strip about 10 inches of plastic sheathing from the new cable to expose the black white and copper wires. When that s done you can treat the cable coming from the outlet into the switch box as a regular line cable. This way the outlet is wired and controlled on off through the switch. In this case you must change the cable from the switch to the light outlet from a 2 wire to a 3 wire cable.

Step 3 run a new stretch of wiring from the light fixture to where you ll be locating the outlet. Pull the fixture away from the wall or ceiling and disconnect it from the existing wall ceiling wiring by undoing the wire nuts connecting the wires. This way the builtin switch control the on off operations of the receptacle in the combo device. At the receptacle the red connects to the top half of the outlet.

As you can see connecting a receptacle to the light would see the receptacle only hot when the light switch is on. The second terminal of switch then connected back to the brass terminal of outlet. Connect the black wire to one of the switch terminals and the black wire going to the light fixture to the other switch terminal. It s usually identified by a silver or light colored screw.

The neutral terminal is always marked. Turning off the switch simply disconnects the power wire from the light fixture cutting off power from your lights. Three wire cable runs from the switch to the outlet providing two hot wires to that location. Disconnect the live wire from the switch and splice it together with the black wire going to your new outlet adding a 6 inch length of spare black wire of the same gauge to make a pigtail.