Blanked receptacle in my kitchen island: Safe to install a GFCI?

Question

Context: Rental house built to US/Oregon code in 2008.

There's a receptacle in my kitchen covered by a blank plate. It's located vertically below the lip of my counter. When I opened it, it had one bundle of wires. Hot and neutral were both capped, and a no-contact tester told me the wires were hot. My intuition says that the home builders were going to install an outlet here before something stopped them.

Is there any reason I can't/shouldn't just pop a GFCI into the receptacle and call it good? Like e.g since the height of the outlet is below the level of the counter, water that gets on devices' cords will flow into the outlet

Answer 1

Aside from the "rental" legal issue, all you know so far is that the wires are live. You don't even know if they are hot and neutral, because in standard US cables, you can't tell without testing. Among the possible situations:

• They might both be hot - i.e., a 240V circuit. Plugging in a regular 120V receptacle would lead to some excitement. (Easy to test and find out.)
• They might be switched somewhere - e.g., same switch as your ceiling lights. If you only test with the lights on, you wouldn't know. But your slow cooker with tomorrow's soup won't turn out so good when you turn out the lights and go to sleep. (A little harder to test, basically have to map the circuit or try every switch in the area.)
• They might not be a proper hot/neutral match. Maybe a mixup in another junction box. Installer found the problem but didn't bother to fix it because there were enough other receptacles. (Not easy to test without mapping the circuit, but relatively unusual in a new house.)
• Hot/neutral reverse. Again, installer found the problem but didn't bother to fix it. (Easy to test if you have a good ground.)
• No ground. You can use GFCI as a way to circumvent "missing ground" in an old house, you can't do that here (for a couple of reasons). (Easy to test.)
• The circuit ended up being used for a hard-wired dishwasher or other large appliance, using more than 50% of the available power and therefore not allowed to have any additional receptacles. (Impossible to test without mapping the circuit.)

And probably a few other things I haven't thought of. And you can't do it anyway because it is a rental. But listing some possibilities for future readers who may have a similar situation in their own home.

Answer 2

It's a junction box, NOT a receptacle, and being in a rental, no, your landlord would need to agree to hire a licensed electrician to change it to a receptacle, if that's even possible.

If it's a rental house you happen to own - guess what, you STILL need to hire a licensed electrician to do it. That arises from "shoddy slumlord substandard work killing tenants" and applies even if you are not a slumlord.

There may not be enough room in the box for that, for instance, which makes a bigger job changing the box as well, etc...