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Old 08-23-2011, 09:31 AM   #12
Ducay
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Quote:
Originally Posted by THE SCUD View Post
Sorry, what do you mean by "taken the electrical plug "it" (assume you meant "in") controls? There could be some controller that forces the plug to be switched?

Outlets can be switched if they are fed by 2 separate hot lines. (Usually one black and one red). Receptacles that are switched will have to have the joining tab between the two outlets cut so that they are seperated. (By default there are little tabs that connect the 2 outlets on both the hot and neutral sides that make it so both outlets can be energized by simply one pair of wires coming in.

So essentially what the other guy was saying is that the previous owner might have done is simply replaced the old receptacle (that had the joining tab cut to make one line switched (with 2 hot lines coming in, 1 switched)) with a new receptacle that didn't have the tab cut and just wired in the receptacle with the 1 always-hot line. (and simply didn't hook up the switched hot wire.

Poorly described but thats the gist of it. Essentially if you have 1 outlet switched you can make it always on. If you really can't figure out what it controls, just unscrew the receptacles and look for one with additional hot lines capped off.
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