Funky Wiring for Half Hot Receptacle in Bedroom

Question

I am in the process of upgrading switches and receptacles in an older home (DIYer). I love learning electrical, but I am stumped on the wiring for a circuit with a half hot outlet. Wondering if a kind soul might be able to point me in the right direction.

Basically, I replaced old receptacles and switches with Decora units, connecting the wires the same way they were originally. I broke off the tab on the half hot outlet (Outlet A in the diagram).

There was one outlet that was a switched outlet.

After swapping everything out, the receptacle that was previously half hot does not operate as expected, and stays on all the time.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Simplest option is that outlet F was also half-hot/half-switched and you were not aware of that, so breaking its tab (or isolating that red wire from the outlet and insulating it, if you don't want it half-switched) might fix your problem.

I would guess that you missed that in the original wiring, or it would work as expected.

Connections at B look like a switch loop out to the switch C, and the switched hot on red. The white wire in the switch loop should be re-marked with red or black tape at both ends to indicate that it is hot.

Actually, the blue connections at B look like you've got another half-switched at B, as well.

Answer 2

Read our FAQ for receptacle/switch replacements.

So I gather you prefer using receptacle A to plug in your light. Here came an error in logic: since you only want a split receptacle at A, you only broke off the tab there. You missed the fact that receptacles B and F also had broken-off tabs.

By wiring it up as you found it but not breaking off the tabs, you short-circuited (literally) the switch.

Two options.

A) Break off the tabs there and A, B and F will have switched sockets.

Or

B) If you'd prefer to have receptacles B and F be full-hot, then you can cap off the red wire at F, and delete the blue pigtail at B which connects to a red wire.

Answer 3

The earlier answers seem correct. To make this less confusing and to make the switch easier to work with, re-identify the white wire attached to the switch and also attached to the wire nut at receptacle B using black electrical tape.