You should consider replacing a few electrical outlets in the wet areas of your house or office with a ground fault circuit interrupter or "GFCI" for short. Why should you do this ? The GFCI has its own circuit breaker and can prevent fatal electric shock or even a fire. We will talk about fitting this device in the place of a regular electrical outlet. You will need some tools, such as; screwdriver, needle-nose pliers, gummy labels, circuit tester, tape, and wirenuts.


Be sure you shut off the electricity to the outlet you want to work on before starting. To be even safer, put a sign on the circuit box where you turned off the electricity saying; " Do not touch !". Not everyone in the house may know you are working on the electrical outlet.


1) Step one is to test and see if you actually did turn the electricity off at the correct receptacle. Take your circuit tester and see if there is any voltage on the wires where you will be working.


2) Take off the cover of the electrical outlet. Move the outlet a few inches away from the wall with the wires still attached.


3) Look at the wiring and see how they are situated. You should have a black, a white and a green wire if you live in the United States. If you have just one black wire and one white wire and one green wire, this receptacle is at the end of a series of receptacles. If you have double the amount of wires, this receptacle is in parallel with other receptacles and is not yet at the end of the electrical wiring. There are other receptacles after this one you are looking at in this circuit and this one is in the stream of electricity flowing to all of them.



4) Disconnect all the wires and separate them so none will be able to touch.


5) If there are two cables coming into the receptacle box in the wall, you will determine which is coming from the electrical panel box. The wires are still apart, so go and turn the circuit breaker back on that controls this receptacle. Use your circuit tester to determine which wires have power. Once you find out, turn the circuit breaker back off that controls this receptacle and mark the wires that you previously found to have power running to them. Mark them with tape saying; "hot" or something similar.



6) Take your GFCI outlet and attach the two wires you marked with tape. Use the white wire on the GFCI connector that looks silver, and use the black wire on the GFCI connector that is bronze colored. If you have a screw as a connector on the GFCI, use the needle-nose pliers to wind the wire around the screw and tighten it on the wire.


7) Connect the other ( this is the ground ) wire to the ground connector on the GFCI. If this box has two ground wires, you will need to cut a wire and run it from the GFCI ground connection to the other ground wires in the wall. If this wall receptacle has the double wiring, which means it is in parallel with other wall receptacles, attach the other wires to the GFCI using the same colors and on top of the others of the same color, black on black, white on white.


8) Put this arrangement back into the hole for the wall receptacle. Use the screws from the old outlet for the GFCI. Before you put the cover back on, make sure no wires are touching that should not be touching. Make sure every wire is covered and insulated from the others and from anything they should not be touching.


9) Put the cover back over the GFCI outlet.


10) Turn the electricity back on at this receptacle, and check to see if it is working. Check other outlets that may be downline from this one for power as well.



11) With the power on, push the GFCI test switch. It should click and the power should be disconnected to this outlet and to any others that are downline from it. Use your circuit tester to make sure.



12 ) Now push the reset button and the power should be restored to any outlet that was disconnected from step eleven. If the power is restored, congratulations, you are done.




This will make your electrical system safer and keep unnecessary accidents from happening, including life threatening ones.