installing a new outlet for the greenhouse on the outside of the garage

i have no outlets anywhere on the outside of my house. so to string an extension cord to a heater in the greenhouse, i had to run it thru the doggy door into the porch. and leave it that way for months. so my dad helped me install an outlet on the outside of the garage. these pictures are from mid april.

first you must cut a hole thru the siding. had a slight oops while cutting.


for future reference, the right tool for this is a jigsaw, not a sheetrock saw. but i did not have a jigsaw and my dads jigsaw was back at his house.


the oops crack went thru the entire piece of siding. but we repaired it with construction adhesive.


view from inside the garage. we located the hole for the new outlet on the other side of the stud from an existing outlet. in this picture, the gray 'in' wire is still connected to the outlet. the gray 'out' wire, for outlets down-series has been pulled out.


existing indoor outlet on the left, back side of the new outdoor outlet box on the right.
in this picture a new 'out' wire has been run from the existing/left outlet (on its lower right side) to the new/right outlet on its lower left side, becoming an 'in' wire to that box. and the old 'out' wire for outlets down-series has been re-installed to the new/right outlet box, the lower right grey wire.


wires for the new outlet


existing outlet back in place with outlet cover.


new outlet connected, black wires to brass screws (B to B). one black wire is 'in' or 'line', bringing the power into the outlet. one black wire is 'out' or 'load', carrying the load of power on down to the rest of the outlets in the series.


ground wire to green screw (G to G). white wires to silver screws (white close to silver in color).


notice that strange horizontal slash thru the left outlet plug? that means its a heavy duty 20 amp outlet (MOAR POWER) rather than a regular household 15 amp outlet. means i can plug the heater in, because the wiring and the outlet and the circuit are all heavier duty to support the extra current.


normally you would (carefully) push the wires and the outlet into the outlet box and screw it to the outlet box. but because this outlet will be outdoors, and will be in use during snow, the outlet was installed with a special outlet cover to enclose not just the outlet, but also the extension cord plug, and protect them from the elements of a minnesota winter.


box with the cover in place


heavy duty extension cord plugged in


view of the cord disappearing up into the box