Not Exactly Plug and Play...

Only real men can use a Hello Kitty lamp as
a test light. My mommy even said so.

As promised, I'm back from the holiday craziness and back to work on the house. If you remember  my last post, I mentioned that I would be installing a new USB outlet in the basement for the computer. Naive as I still am about the new house, I figured this would be pretty straight forward and boring. Turn a couple screws, twist a couple wires, and badda-bing I'm done, right? Wrong!

That can't be good.

Nope, not good.

Few things in life are simple, and I knew changing out this outlet wouldn't be one of them from the second my screwdriver touched it. Both the wallplate and the ports broke in half. At least the wallplate had to hit the floor before it split, though. Now you can see why I thought this might be some kind of fire hazard. Things got even more fun, though, when I got the rest of it out of the wall.

In case you were wondering, yes, it is
disintegrating before your very eyes.

As I started to take the rest of the outlet out of the wall, it quite literally just came unraveled. Every twist of the screwdriver released another part of it. The ground wire was the only thing keeping the mounting bracket in place, and the other connections fell off while trying to get the wires free. It was like a strange anatomy lesson, but with an outlet. Check out the picture below and you'll see what I ended up with, exactly as it came out of the wall.

Enough about the old, it's time to talk about the new. Now, I wasn't able to get the style of outlet that I wanted because nobody local carried them, but Home Depot did have a version made by Leviton that had two USB plugs and one standard plug, so I went with that. It also saved me some money since the two and two versions cost almost $30.

Old way.

I started wiring in the new outlet and it wasn't long before I made my first mistake. I knew I wasn't supposed to do it, but I did none the less. You see, these newfangled, high tech outlets have plates that are compressed by the screws. The wires simply slide in under them and you tighten them down. I almost wired the entire thing the old school way of wrapping the wire around the screw before I remembered. I like the new style because it eliminates the need for needle nose pliers to twist the wire and wrap around the screw, that is, if you aren't re-wiring old stuff. It was also helpful because the previous electrician left me with very short wires that weren't easy to work with.

 After I corrected my mistake and finished wiring, I ran into my next issue. I don't know if it was the holidays, or just a recent lack of self control, but my outlet got fat. Too fat for it's hole, at least. So, ever the opportunist, I jumped at the chance to buy a new tool. A trip to Harbor Freight later and I was ready to do some cutting.

I'm not fat! I just have
extra plastic!

Once I cut the opening, I was finally able to fit the outlet in the box. After I slapped on the wallplate it was time to throw the breaker and see if the house burned down. A few minutes of breakers not tripping and after a successful smell test, it was time to try it out... With Tracy's phone first, of course. :)

Success!

I took waaaaaaaaaay longer than it probably should have, but was definitely worth it. Now I can charge our phones and tablets at the computer desk without switching out a USB device on the computer and without taking up a plug on the power strip under the desk. Also, anyone who is visiting can charge their device without attaching it to my PC, meaning no worries about bugs, viruses, or info ending up on either machine. Nice!

So, feeling motivated to install your own USB outlet? Tell me all about it in the comment section below. Also, if you like reading about my crappy house, throw us a bone once in a while and click on an ad.

As always, thanks for reading!