Many homes come with one or, if you’re lucky, two exterior outlets. Depending on the shape and layout of your house, this may not be enough. You can pay someone to add exterior outlets but that could be pricey. Instead, here’s a simple way to add exterior outlets using components rated for outdoors.
Materials
Leviton 15 Amp 125-Volt Duplex Self-Test Tamper Resistant/Weather Resistant GFCI Outlet – $19
Cantex 1-Gang FSE Electrical Box – $7
Note that this plastic electrical box only has an opening on one side unlike others that have a open on the top and bottom. Since we don’t water to get in, we use this single hole box and install it such that the hole is at the bottom.
Gardner Bender 3/8 in. 1-Hole Plastic Cable Clamps – (15-Pack) – $1
HDX 50 ft. 16/3 Indoor/Outdoor Landscape Extension Cord, Green – $15
Instructions
One exterior outlet
- Cut off the female end of the extension cord,
- strip about 3 inches of the green outer jacket to expose the 3 wires (green, white, black) inside,
- strip 1/2″ of the 3 wires and screw them into the appropriate terminals on the outlet.
- screw the outlet into the electrical box
- screw on the outlet cover
- if you have an existing exterior outlet, you can simply plug the other end (male end) into that outlet. Otherwise, you can cut off the male end, drill a hole through the exterior wall where an interior outlet is and connect the wires to the interior outlet. WARNING: Turn off power to the interior outlet before doing this to avoid electrocution and a short circuit.
- Secure the extension cord to the exterior of the building using the cable clamps. Or, bury the extension cord under dirt or rocks. Or, put the cord into a gray outdoor-rated PVC pipe and clamp the pipe using the gray plastic clamps.
Two exterior outlets in series
In this case, one of the electrical boxes will have two extension cords coming into it as shown in the picture below.
In this case, strip the wires again and connect them as usual. The outlet I’m using supports two wires for each black and white terminal so that was straightforward. The green (ground) terminal, however, only support one wire so I made a jumper wire, connected it to the green terminal, then connected the 3 open green wire ends to a 3-terminal Wago connector as shown below.
