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MrNoBody wrote:
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.
I'm hesitant to open this thing back up again -- I had a devil of a time getting the switches to line up and come enough forward for the faceplate, it seemed that the plastic box was too far back into the wall and not lined up well with the hole in the wall. I'd probably have to go digging into the wall to find the source cable you're talking about.
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I'm hesitant to open this thing back up again --
So you are no looking for advice, you are looking for assurance
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space-time wrote:
I'm hesitant to open this thing back up again --
So you are no looking for advice, you are looking for assurance
NO, if I have to open it up again, I will. The question is whether or not I really have to, given that the previous switches weren't grounded either.
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If the dimmer is working, you are done.
Look around at all of the space heaters, toasters, and Apple products that only have a 2 prong plug.
If the dimmer is working, you are done.
:oldfogey:
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but is it dangerous that the switches aren't grounded?
In this instance, no.
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OK, thanks guys. If it was a metal box, or if there had been a ground wire, I definitely would have connected it... I was just very surprised when I opened it up that the green ground wires on the previous switches weren't connected to anything. (I wonder if that's because the box being plastic, whoever put in the previous switches had the same problem I did...)
I presume that to find a ground, I would have to go behind the box and see what's happening with the source cable, as MrNoBody suggested?
And yes, the new switches work perfectly ... I'm glad I went with Lutron, the sliding action on these are much better than the previous switches and with the toggle, there's no chance of doing what I'd done before with the previous switches -- namely to accidentally leave the lights on by not pushing the slider all the way off.
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The box being plastic is irrelevant. The grounding wires on the switches should be attached to a ground wire coming from the main breaker panel. For all except the oldest houses, this will be either a third wire in the cable that enters the box, or in some older homes the armored cable itself constitutes the ground path. For a light switch the ground is probably less important than a receptacle or wired in device of some kind so if there is no ground wire in the cable entering the box I wouldn't worry about it.
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davester, so would you recommend me opening it back up to look for the ground wire?
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PeterB wrote:
davester, so would you recommend me opening it back up to look for the ground wire?
For just a light switch I wouldn't bother (but note that I'm not an electrician). If it were hooked up to a high amperage appliance that needed grounding to be safe I would, but my feeling is that lights are not that likely to cause a problem. Even so, if your house is old enough that there are no ground wires back to the breaker/fuse box then this would be futile.
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PeterB - how old is your house?
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