How to Control the Power to Your Appliance Garage with a RIB Relay

Sam Klennert

Mar 17, 2020 3 min read

I remember when I was house hunting, besides being told "location, location, location," the real estate agent said that kitchens are a big deal. With kitchens comes appliances of all shapes and sizes. Some appliances need quick access, for example the oven or the fridge. Other appliances may not want to be seen unless being used, like toasters, coffee makers, and other countertop gadgets.

I've received some calls over the years of people incorporating "appliance garages" on their countertops to hide those bulky devices. Typically, there is a receptacle in that garage for convenience, and in some areas (i.e. Canada) that receptacle needs to be switched off when the appliance garage door is closed. If that's the case, people find the magnetic door/window switches very useful for controlling the power to the receptacle. Those little switches can't control 120V high voltage. That's where a relay comes in!

Presenting our handy Dry Contact Input RIB Relays. Specifically, the RIB01BDC, as homes here in North America output 120Vac from the wall receptacles.

The setup looks like this:

Connect the Black wire and the Orange wire to constant 120V Hot feed
Connect the White wire and the receptacle Neutral to the Neutral feed
Connect the Yellow wire to the Hot input terminal on the receptacle
Connect the White/Red and White/Blue wires to the magnetic door/window switch
In this setup the Blue wire is not used, so put a wire nut on the end of the wire

That's it! Now install the door switch and your appliance garage receptacle can turn on and off when the door opens and closes! If there are any questions about using RIB relays in this way or any other way, feel free to get a hold of us.