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+--- Thread: Quick electrical/lighting question (/showthread.php?tid=258033)
Quick electrical/lighting question - PeterB - 07-15-2021
I finally got around to replacing two light dimmer switches for one room in my house -- the switches that were there, there was nothing wrong with them, but they didn't match and I just wanted to make it look nice. (It was two switches side-by-side in one box, so their not matching each other was super-obvious.)
So I turned off the AC to the house, unscrewed the cover, pulled out the switches, and discovered -- neither of the switches was grounded (green wire was loose). I'm guessing that it was because the box is plastic rather than metal. I was able to do the swapout no problem, but is it dangerous that the switches aren't grounded? (The other big problem I had was that the box was fairly well recessed into the wall on one side, making it nearly impossible to get the switches to stay straight and come forward enough to fit into the cover... and it also wasn't helpful that the wires in the box weren't properly color-coded.)
I'm NOT an electrician, and have never done anything like this before. But it'd be good for me to know because there's another set of switches in the house that aren't currently dimmable, that I'd want to make dimmable, so I see myself doing this again sometime in the very near future.
TiA
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - timg - 07-15-2021
My understanding is that the ground is not required for the switch. It's added protection, so for new installations they include it, but it isn't required.
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - Bernie - 07-15-2021
If I had a ground wire I would attach it to the Green screw on the switch on the possibility that it is grounded at the panel.
Plastic boxes are the future.
Plastic boxes are not even so much as a pitch change when the roto zip slices through them.:facepalm:
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - mattkime - 07-15-2021
>neither of the switches was grounded (green wire was loose). I'm guessing that it was because the box is plastic rather than metal.
When was your house built?
Older homes might not have ground wires run to the boxes which is how it would normally be grounded. Yes, sometimes metal boxes are grounded but this should be verified.
You mention the plastic box....does the wiring look old?
Anyway, all is fine. Standards change over the years.
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - PeterB - 07-15-2021
Bernie wrote:
If I had a ground wire I would attach it to the Green screw on the switch on the possibility that it is grounded at the panel.
Plastic boxes are the future.
Plastic boxes are not even so much as a pitch change when the roto zip slices through them.:facepalm:
Not sure I followed that. There's a green wire on the switch (soldered to the metal frame of the switch), which I assume should be attached to the metal of the box... but since the box isn't metal, there's no point in attaching it. (The screws that hold the switches to the box are therefore not touching metal either.)
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - mikebw - 07-15-2021
PeterB wrote:
[quote=Bernie]
If I had a ground wire I would attach it to the Green screw on the switch on the possibility that it is grounded at the panel.
Plastic boxes are the future.
Plastic boxes are not even so much as a pitch change when the roto zip slices through them.:facepalm:
Not sure I followed that. There's a green wire on the switch (soldered to the metal frame of the switch), which I assume should be attached to the metal of the box... but since the box isn't metal, there's no point in attaching it. (The screws that hold the switches to the box are therefore not touching metal either.)
You mentioned before that the green wires were loose. I assume you meant existing green wire in the box. Since you have a new switch with an attached green wire you should put them all together with a wire nut.
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - C(-)ris - 07-15-2021
You wouldn't typically have a ground wire in the switch box in an older house where the line from the breaker box runs into the light fixture and then another wire is run to the switch.
Easy way to tell is if you have a ground and a white wire in your switch box. If not, no need for a ground as the red and black wire in the box are simply used as a loop to open or close.
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - Bernie - 07-15-2021
Bare wire goes to Green nut.
Older homes do not have the bare copper ground.
Dimmer has Green wire? Then it goes to bare copper wire.
Older homes do not have the bare copper ground.
Instructions vary. Some may state to run both Green and White to White when no ground is available.
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - PeterB - 07-15-2021
mikebw wrote:
[quote=PeterB]
[quote=Bernie]
If I had a ground wire I would attach it to the Green screw on the switch on the possibility that it is grounded at the panel.
Plastic boxes are the future.
Plastic boxes are not even so much as a pitch change when the roto zip slices through them.:facepalm:
Not sure I followed that. There's a green wire on the switch (soldered to the metal frame of the switch), which I assume should be attached to the metal of the box... but since the box isn't metal, there's no point in attaching it. (The screws that hold the switches to the box are therefore not touching metal either.)
You mentioned before that the green wires were loose. I assume you meant existing green wire in the box. Since you have a new switch with an attached green wire you should put them all together with a wire nut.
No, the green wires on the switches inside the box were loose -- they hadn't been connected to anything. There were no other green wires in the box.
C(-)ris wrote:
You wouldn't typically have a ground wire in the switch box in an older house where the line from the breaker box runs into the light fixture and then another wire is run to the switch.
Easy way to tell is if you have a ground and a white wire in your switch box. If not, no need for a ground as the red and black wire in the box are simply used as a loop to open or close.
No ground wire that I could see in the box. Just the wires going to the switches -- one was black and one white with red dashes. I connected the black to the black wire on the new switch and the white with red dashes to the white wire on the new switch. (There was also a white wire with red dashes on the new switch, but I figured out that this was NOT the right wire to use.)
Bernie wrote:
Bare wire goes to Green nut.
Older homes do not have the bare copper ground.
Dimmer has Green wire? Then it goes to bare copper wire.
Older homes do not have the bare copper ground.
Instructions vary. Some may state to run both Green and White to White when no ground is available.
As above -- no bare copper ground. The dimmer switch doesn't have a green nut, only a green wire which is soldered to the metal frame.
...
So -- to summarize: I was able to connect the new dimmer switches, but the green ground wires on the switches aren't connected to anything. That's the same as the dimmer switches I replaced (they weren't grounded either). The question is, is this dangerous, and/or should I do anything about it?
Re: Quick electrical/lighting question - MrNoBody - 07-16-2021
white wire with red dashes on the new switch
Sounds like that's for a dual switch setup.
The question is, is this dangerous, and/or should I do anything about it?
Not necessarily dangerous, just less safe.
Me, I'd pull the source cable (Romex?) & see if it has a ground. If so,
I would put it to use. In addition to the safety factor, a grounded dimmer
switch is less likely to cause any RFI issues.
