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I need to get rid of this outlet for a wall bed installation.

existing outlet

From what I gather to disable the outlet..

  1. turn power off from main panel
  2. disconnect the wires from the outlet
  3. use copper twist-on wire connectors to connect the 2 black wires together and 2 white wires together.
  4. push it all back in there and seal it up.

My questions are

  • did I miss anything? I would rather do this myself if it's a small job without need for an electrician

  • What should I do with the single ground wire? leave it uncovered and shove it back there anyhow?

  • [unrelated] why are outlets designed to stick out?

Monsieur Noir
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    Is there a reason you can't just leave it there unused? If it's the 3/16" or so protrusion of the cover, I believe that plastering the box in would be a code violation. – Daniel Griscom Jun 01 '16 at 15:08
  • The wall bed needs to be flush against against wall before stud screws are put in.. Even with the cover removed the outlet still protrudes enough to interfere. – Monsieur Noir Jun 01 '16 at 15:16

3 Answers3

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You cannot permanently cover over the box, it must remain "accessible". Unless of course, you find the other ends of these cables and disconnect them. But then I suspect some things would stop working, as it looks like this feeds power through to the rest of the circuit.

Tester101
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  • Are you certain? I was under the impression that you can use a fully enclosed junction box and seal that inside the wall. – Carl Witthoft Jun 01 '16 at 16:16
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    @CarlWitthoft Pretty sure. "***314.29 Boxes, Conduit Bodies, and Handhole Enclosures to Be Accessible.** Boxes, conduit bodies, and handhole enclosures shall be installed so that the wiring contained in them can be rendered accessible without removing any part of the building or structure...*" – Tester101 Jun 01 '16 at 16:24
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    @CarlWitthoft No, you can't bury boxes. If anything were to ever come loose, the next owner wouldn't know that there would be one hidden. – TFK Jun 01 '16 at 16:31
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    @CarlWitthoft confirmed. Cannot bury boxes. There are certain splices designed, listed and permitted for burying behind drywall outside a box, so he'd need to remove the box entirely. – Harper - Reinstate Monica Jun 02 '16 at 02:17
  • @Harper Please see [this answer](http://diy.stackexchange.com/a/89946/33), for more information on those splice devices. – Tester101 Jun 02 '16 at 11:49
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My questions are

did I miss anything? I would rather do this myself if it's a small job without >need for an electrician What should I do with the single ground wire? leave it uncovered and shove it back there anyhow? [unrelated] why are outlets designed to stick out?

First, like Tester101 said, you can't seal and bury the box in the wall. You would need to put on a blank cover.

Otherwise, you're good to go with your plan.

Since this outlet seems to be in line with others, I'm assuming that that ground wire is connected to others back within the box. It'll be a short piece of wire, a pigtail, that you can twist off and remove. You could also just wrap it around the other grounds and push it back in the box; ensuring that everything remains connected.

Outlets stick out so that they are flush with the covers. If you notice, the edges around that hole in the wall don't look as clean as a cover would make it appear - since the cover needs some depth to it to hide that, the outlet or device has to extend out to match.

Community
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TFK
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Another alternative is to recess the outlet box so that the cover plate is maybe 1-inch deep. Then you've got the outlet available, with internal clearance for a plug (the wire itself is unlikely to affect the flushness of the bed to the wall).

Carl Witthoft
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