You will have various electrical needs around your home offered by residential electrician Perth. As a result, you may end up having a room with switches where an outlet would be significantly more convenient. If you are not a trained electrician, it is easy to be unaware of what you can and cannot do with the power in your home.
Is it possible to convert a light switch to an outlet?
Yes, a light switch can be converted into an electrical outlet. However, because outlets and light switches serve different purposes, the wiring for one or the other will be enough different that you should entrust the installation to a skilled electrician.
How an Electrician Converts a Switch to an Outlet
The first two options are whether to keep the switch and how you want the new outlet to work. Although you may not frequently use the present light switch and believe an outlet would be more suited to your needs, completely eliminating the light switch may not be the best option. Fortunately, you don't have to choose between an outlet and a switch because there are solutions that provide both. You can have your electrician wire the outlet so that it is controlled by the switch, or you can have the outlet work independently of the switch.
Anything involving electrical wiring is not a good fit for a do-it-yourself house project. The inherent dangers of working with electricity, as well as the chance of incorrectly wiring an outlet, are not worth the risks.
To avoid electrocution, determine which circuit the switch is on and turn off the power supply to that circuit.
Remove the wall switch and mark the wires that connect to it. The typical guideline for electrical wire colour codes is that red and black wires are live, while white wires are neutral; however, another colour may be chosen.
Connect the wires to the outlet's appropriate terminals. For the switch to function effectively, all wires must be properly connected. This is something that only a skilled specialist can do. A potential issue could develop if the person who installed the switch mistakenly connected the wires; if you duplicate what was done earlier, you will end up with the same bad wiring job.
What Can Go Wrong When Plugging in a Light Switch?
Electricity makes life easier and more convenient, but improper wiring can have disastrous repercussions. Before attempting to convert your light switch to an outlet, consider the following common bad effects of DIY conversions.
A combined light switch/outlet that is not always turned on. If you're not looking to completely replace a light switch with an outlet, a combination light switch and outlet can help you have the best of both worlds. However, if you don't properly wire this fixture, you'll wind up with an outlet that only works when the switch is turned on, which defeats the purpose of having both.
Inadvertently inverting the hot and neutral wires. This is one of the most harmful outcomes you could encounter. When you replace a light switch with an outlet and do not correctly connect the wires, you may cause a shock hazard.
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