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Installing An Outdoor Electrical Receptacle On Your Home - Part 2

Part 1

  1. Turn OFF the power to that cable by removing the fuse or turning off the breaker.
  2. Cut the cable in a convenient location.
  3. Place an electrical box in a position that allows for about 9 inches of cable to protrude from the box on both ends of the cut cable.
  4. Bring the cable from the new outdoor receptacle electrical box to one of the new electrical boxes.
  5. Run a cable from one electrical box to the other electrical box.
Electrical box added for outdoor outlet connection
Figure 4 - Electrical box added for outdoor outlet connection
GFCI receptacle
Figure 5 - GFCI Duplex electrical outlet
GFCI Circuit Breaker
Figure 6 - GFCI Circuit Breaker
  1. Connect the wires, blacks to blacks, whites to whites and grounds to grounds, see Figure 4.
  2. Place a cover on each of the electrical boxes.
  3. Your outdoor receptacle should be a GFCI style, as shown in Figure 5 or if you are adding a new circuit breaker to your load center (distribution panel) you can install a GFCI circuit breaker, as shown in Figure 6.

    Additional information on GFCI devices.

    If you are adding more than 1 receptacle and the receptacles are in parallel you only need to have the first receptacle in the circuit GFCI rated.

    The first GFCI receptacle, in the circuit, will protect the receptacles that are farther down the circuit.

    Figure 2 at top of page, shows a weatherproof, in-use outdoor electrical installation, incorporating 2 receptacles in the weatherproof box, only one of them is a GFCI type.

There are many types of weatherproof and rainproof covers, Figures 7 and 8. But you should consider using a weatherproof or rainproof "in-use-cover". These covers are designed to keep rain water from entering the outlet (receptacle) and causing a short circuit when there is a cord plugged into the outlet (receptacle).

weatherproof outdoor receptacle cover
Figure 7 - This style of weatherproof cover protects the outlet (receptacle) when the are not in use. But when a cord is plugged in, they do not provide protection from the elements.
in use cover for outdoor electrical receptacle
Figure 8 - This style of weatherproof cover protects the outlet (receptacle) from the elements even when a cord is plugged into one or both of the outlets (receptacles).

Additional information on: Installing a receptacle