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I am replacing a wall outlet with a Cooper Wiring USB outlet (TR7745). enter image description here

The new outlet has 3 wires coming out of it--a black, a white, and a green. Each one needs to be attached with a wire nut to the appropriate wires. The trouble is that there are 5 wires (2 white, 2 black, a a ground). My first try was using 1 of each and putting a wire nut on the extras, but nothing in the room works now. What do I do with the extra black and white wires?

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You didn't say how the old outlet was wired, but I'm assuming that both whites were connected to the screws one one side and both blacks on the other side. In this case, the tho white wires were effectively connected together and the two black wires were also effectively connected together.

Put the three black wires(two from the wall and one from the outlet) together in one wirenut and put the three white wires together in another wirenut.

Note that if you are using small wires nuts provided with the new outlet, you may need to buy larger ones to fit all three wires.

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    For clarification, in this situation, the two sets of wires in the junction box are likely the "line" and "load". The line is the power source from the previous device on this circuit, and the load is the feed to the remaining devices on this circuit. Disconnecting these from each other breaks the circuit, resulting in no power to those remaining devices. If you wired the receptacle to only the load, then even it wouldn't have power.
    – BMitch ♦
    Aug 26, 2013 at 14:17
  • It is a very new house--only 2 years old, and your assumptions are correct. That is exactly what I did (this question was actually migrated from another Stack Exchange site--someone else gave a very similar response). Works perfectly, thank you.
    – Andrew
    Aug 26, 2013 at 17:15
  • Actually, that was me, I believe. My answer was migrated along with the question. You're welcome.
    – DoxyLover
    Sep 11, 2013 at 5:09

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