We recently moved into a house built in the early 60s. All of the bedrooms have these unique "Sierra Triplex" outlets that I would like to replace with standard duplex grounded outlets.
I have updated several ungrounded duplex outlets around the house with grounded duplex outlets. The boxes contained ground wires that were pigtailed together. I've checked those with a tester and they seem to be fine.
The triplex outlets are a bit more confusing for me. All of the outlets are "switched" (forgive me if I use the wrong terms, I have a very limited knowledge of this stuff) so that the top plug is controlled by the light switch in the room. The other two plugs below are always hot, or work independent of the light switch.
I pulled out the triplex and saw a black, white, and red wire.
I wired in a standard duplex outlet, hooking the black (hot) and white (neutral) wires into one set of screws and the red (switched?) wire to the other brass screw. Result: both plugs work just fine. Neither is controlled by the switch anymore. However, the switch now no longer controls any of the top plugs in the remaining triplex outlets that I have yet to update.
Questions:
(1) Assuming I don't care about the wall switch not controlling the outlets, is this wiring I've done--hooking the red wire into the other copper screw--acceptable? Would it be better to cap it?
(2) If I did want the switch function to work, I believe I would need to break off the plastic tab separating the screws in the new duplex outlet. Is that correct?
(3) Is it possible to have the situation where say 3 of the outlets in the room are not controlled by the switch at all, but the top plug of the fourth outlet is controlled by the switch? It seems from the current set up that it might be an all or nothing proposition, either every outlet in the circuit needs to be wired to be switched or none of them are.
Any guidance would be appreciated.
I have updated several ungrounded duplex outlets around the house with grounded duplex outlets. The boxes contained ground wires that were pigtailed together. I've checked those with a tester and they seem to be fine.
The triplex outlets are a bit more confusing for me. All of the outlets are "switched" (forgive me if I use the wrong terms, I have a very limited knowledge of this stuff) so that the top plug is controlled by the light switch in the room. The other two plugs below are always hot, or work independent of the light switch.
I pulled out the triplex and saw a black, white, and red wire.
I wired in a standard duplex outlet, hooking the black (hot) and white (neutral) wires into one set of screws and the red (switched?) wire to the other brass screw. Result: both plugs work just fine. Neither is controlled by the switch anymore. However, the switch now no longer controls any of the top plugs in the remaining triplex outlets that I have yet to update.
Questions:
(1) Assuming I don't care about the wall switch not controlling the outlets, is this wiring I've done--hooking the red wire into the other copper screw--acceptable? Would it be better to cap it?
(2) If I did want the switch function to work, I believe I would need to break off the plastic tab separating the screws in the new duplex outlet. Is that correct?
(3) Is it possible to have the situation where say 3 of the outlets in the room are not controlled by the switch at all, but the top plug of the fourth outlet is controlled by the switch? It seems from the current set up that it might be an all or nothing proposition, either every outlet in the circuit needs to be wired to be switched or none of them are.
Any guidance would be appreciated.
