Why does turning off the light switch turn off the outlet?
When an electrical outlet is wired to a light switch, it loses power completely whenever the switch is turned off. This prevents people from using devices that require constant power, such as shavers, curlers, and toothbrushes.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Having an electrician break the tab on the side of the outlet and run a separate hot wireDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“One of (many) quirks that we discovered is the electrical outlet is tied to the light switch, so it can't be used if the light switch is off ( ex: to charge shavers, curlers, toothbrushes, etc)”source ↗
“Thats how my bathroom was too, previous owner had it so the whole outlet died with the switch.”source ↗