Changing a plug socket face plate.

Fenris

Fenris

Fenris

Soldato
Joined
3 Feb 2009
Posts
8,692
Location
Brighton, UK.
Ok, so I was moving furniture and dropped a chair on a plug socket, managed to crack the thing in such a way that the face plate broke around the screws.

So, is this fixable by someone with no knowledge of the working of an plug socket? Can I just waltz up to B&Q and buy a new face plate, re wire it the same way as the broken one and bobs your uncle?

Am I likely to kill myself in the process?

I've so far avoided touching it because electricity scares me but I can cut the power from the breakers in my house, is this enough to make it safe or will touching a wire even then turn me into a small peice of charcoal?
 
Once you flip the breaker for that circuit I'd still test it with a phase tester/multimeter.

Then changing the faceplate is easy - most of them tell you what colours to put where, and if anything you just need to copy what you've got there currently.

If you really don't feel comfortable get someone that is.
 
yeah it's pretty easy did one the other day, bit fiddly though but fourtunatly this house is as old as the hills and still has the proper Red black green :p

I can never remember the new ones :(
 
Take some pictures of the back of the socket so you know exactly what it looks like just in case you abort and want to revert.
 
One little thing to watch out for though, don't just replace the wires into exactly the same holes on the new plugs without checking that they haven't swopped things about a bit.

For example, i took an old front plate off and when looking at the back the negative went in the left hand side hole, the positive in the right side and the earth on top, the new plate had these swopped around so + went in left and - in the right. Did a couple before i noticed this.
 
whenever you change a socket a good idea is to plug a lamp into that's turned on, then flip the power, if it goes off you should be fine!
 
MikeB said:
whenever you change a socket a good idea is to plug a lamp into that's turned on, then flip the power, if it goes off you should be fine!
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LOL Something just doesn't sound right about what you said. That is not a good idea. It's ridiculously obvious common sense :p Bit like saying "it's a good idea to wear shoes before you leave the house on a rainy day"
 
I've done loads of these without turning off the mains. Take your time, use rubber handled needle nose pliers to hold the wires, rubber handled screwdrivers to undo the screws.

BUT DON'T DO THIS IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING OR YOU WILL DIE!
 
RobRX-7 said:
LOL Something just doesn't sound right about what you said. That is not a good idea. It's ridiculously obvious common sense :p Bit like saying "it's a good idea to wear shoes before you leave the house on a rainy day"
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agree with what you say, but amazing the lack of common sense about :) , who know's it might help someone!
 
kefkef said:
One little thing to watch out for though, don't just replace the wires into exactly the same holes on the new plugs without checking that they haven't swopped things about a bit.

For example, i took an old front plate off and when looking at the back the negative went in the left hand side hole, the positive in the right side and the earth on top, the new plate had these swopped around so + went in left and - in the right. Did a couple before i noticed this.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I've had this too when replacing a knackered double socket with a new one and finding that things had changed (and the original one wasn't very old either).

If the OP isn't to sure I would suggest picking up a 13amp socket tester by Rapitest. They are <£10 and light up to indicate if you've screwed up and in what way you have done so.
 
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