My new electric range has a pigtail with 4 prongs, one of which is round. My wall outlet has only 3 holes or slots. Is it best to change the wall outlet to match the new range or to change the pigtail on the range to match the wall outlet?
Marty if you have questions on how to do this please ask. Or if you can take a digital of the terminal block of the range and post it that will help us a bunch. Basically you are going to be connecting the three wires of the new pigtail just like the 4 wire pigtail you take off.... the difference is the new pigtail will not have the green wire. You are going to connect a green wire, green and yellow stripe or metal strap to the neutral terminal of the range which is the one the white wire of the pigtail was connected on. all ranges are different to a degree on how this is done that is why it is important to have the instructions. On some 4 wire connections the green from the pigtail will be connected under a green screw with another green wire coming from the range. You will simply take the green wire from the range and run it down and connect it under the neutral terminal along with the white wire of the new 3 wire pigtail and the green screw will be unoccupied. It just depends.... try to get a picture and post it if you don't have instructions. Or at minimum explain how the range is connected with the 4 wire pigtail before you take it off.
Also verify the existing 3 wire power supply and breaker being correctly sized for the new range.
Thank you for the reply. I havn't yet removed the back range cover as I got tired and will do that in the morning. I just looked at the pigtail and noticed it wouldn't work in the old receptical. Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't it be better to change the old receptical so that it can accept the newer 4 prong plug? Just curious as I am not familiar with this setup. Thank you in advance and I'm sorry if I sound ignorant.
Your not ignorant or you wouldn't be here asking the right questions. You cannot change just the receptacle as you only have three wires in the electrical box coming from your circuit breaker panel. The pigtail you have has 4 wires so you do not have enough wires to match up with the 4 wire pigtail. Does that make sense? You would have to run a new cable to the range receptacle that has 4 wires in it... 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground in order to use the 4 wire pigtail. Making sense? There is the possibility you have 4 wires but you would have to check inside the range electrical box to see if there is an unused wire capped off in the box. Do not do this if you do not understand how to turn the power off to the receptacle.
If you have trouble understanding what to do ask questions and I will post some diagrams to help you out.
The round pin on the range cord is the wire your missing in the wall receptacle. This is called your equipment ground.. in a three wire connection the neutral plays double duty as the equipment ground and the neutral wire... thus only 3 wires instead of 4.
Do you have the instructions for your new range?
This is what your 4 wire pigtail plugs into... both attached images are wall outlets you may have a surface receptacle but the patterns is the same on both.
This is what your wall receptacle is now ... it should be like this a nema 10 50 R
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