You're Grounded

Hello,



I am replacing a bath light and I am a bit confused by the wiring. I can reattach the wires with the new fixture exactly like the old fixuture was attached but the old fixture did not have a ground connection.



Here is how the wires a



Two whites connected to each other but not to the fixture.

One white and one bare copper wire (I thought it was the ground) connected together and to the white wire of the ligh fixture

one black wire connected to the black wire of the light fixture



How to I connect the the fixture green wire in this configuration?



Thanks
      

I have an outdoor light fixture that I am trying to replace.  The house was built ten years ago.



When I removed the original lamp, I noticed one of the two leads was wired to the ground, and one was wired to the black wire, which is hot per my current sensor.  There are three wires in the box - black, ground (bare copper), and white or neutral, all from a single romex cable.  Unfortunately, I do not recall where the white was when I removed the original. 



I wired the new lamp per the instructions, something I have done many times before - black to black, white to white, and bare copper ground to ground.  Nothing.  The lamp and bulbs are brand new, and I have tried four separate bulbs.  I checked the black and neutral with my current sensor and with the switch on and the lamp installed this way, both show as hot. With the lamp not installed, the switch on, and the wires disconnected only the black shows as hot.  The switch is single pole, and appears to be wired correctly with a black to each screw on one side and a copper ground on the other.



Assuming the new fixture was bad, I reinstalled the old fixture correctly -  black to black, white to white, and bare copper ground to ground.  Still nothing. No light, and I confirmed the bulb is good by putting it in another lamp.   The only way to get it to light is to connect the neutral in the lamp to the bare copper ground.



I capped the wires, turned the circuit back on, and identified all the outlets, switches and fixtures on the same circuit.  I opened every one of them up (four lights and eight outlets) and found three (one switch and two fixtures in another room) where multiple commons connect.  All were properly connected.  My outlet tester shows all outlets as "correct".  I found no instances of grounds connected to commons or vice-versa.



Any ideas?  Is it proper to wire this thing the way I found it?



Thanks for any and all advice!
      

I have a bad dimmer switch. I have 2 other switches that control the light. They are standard non dimmers. I want to just bypass this dimmer and close it up. Which of these do i connect to which? Do i just connect all the black to black, ETC...? There are 3 sets of wires coming into this box and one of the black wires is just hanging out in the back connected to nothing.







Thank you.
      

Hello,



I currently have one light switch which operates an outlet in one of my bedrooms.  I want to add a ceiling fan that has independent switches for the fan and light - but I want to make sure i'm wiring it correctly and safely.



Current (First Pic)- Live hot feeds into bottom of switch (bottom insert hole) and the all of the bedroom outlets (pig-tailed) tie into the bottom of the switch on the screw.  Coming out of the top of the switch is one hot which feeds to a single outlet.  All of the neutral and grounds are tied together.



New Plan (Second Pic)- Remove the constant outlet hot from the screw, add a new hot wire to the top of new switch and run a wire up to the attic for fan.  Add another hot wire from the bottom of that switch to the third switch and run another wire up to the attic for the lights.  Re-connect the constant outlet wire to the screw of the last switch.  Connect all the neutrals and all of the grounds together.



At the top of the ceiling, connect the neutrals and grounds together with the fans neutral and ground.  Connect the fan hot to the fan switch hot, and the fan light hot to the light switch hot.
      

I am installing a ceiling fan for my mom and the wiring has me a little confused. I posted pictures below of the ceiling fan wiring and the light fixture wiring. Just need to know how to connect the two together without burning down the place. Thanks in advance






      

I am putting a theater area in my basement, but my electrical panels are also in the same room.  To keep the room symmetrical, it would look best to install the new panel two stud bays over and put the sconce in between - then it would match with the sconce on the other side.  I can't put the sconce on the other side further back because of a doorway.  I plan to paint the panels the same color as the walls so they blend a little better.



Anyhow, I attached a picture of the proposed layout.  The sconce sticks about 5 inches out from the wall.  Will the inspector approve such a setup?  I should still be able to access the panels without an issue, but don't want to do something against code, or stupid in some way.



Thanks!
      

I bought a replacement motor (Dayton 6k778k) for my attic fan.  I removed the old one and it has two wires coming out that connect to two wires that go down to the light switch that turns it on.  They were connected by those plastic twist things.  So, I open up my new motor assuming that there would be two wires coming out of it that I would just connect to the existing wires, however there are just a bunch of blade connectors and I have no idea what is supposed to connect to what and how.  I'm attaching three pictures. One is the old motor/wires, the second is the inside of the new motor, and the third is really the only thing that alludes to how this should he hitched up. 3 & 2 were pre-connected out of the box...which leaves 4 & 1.  Is one of the wires from the light switch supposed to connect to 4 and one to 1?  If so, which one goes to which? Do I need to put blade connectors on the end of the wires that go down to the light switch in order to connect them?  Any help is much appreciated.
      

I am trying to connect the Digital Timer switch to a 3 way switch. My issue is that the existing switch has 4 wires, Red, Black, White and Ground.



The Digital Timer has 5 wires, Red, Black, White, Blue and Ground (green). I can't understand how to connect it. Any help is appreciated.
      

I'm trying to fix a problem with a track light installment over the a bar I've just put in. I've done it before. never had issues. but this particular problem is driving me nuts. It just defies logic.  The electrician who actually installed the associated dimmer switches with this dining room area was called as it seems it may be a flaw with his wiring, but he's blown us off and I have to try and solve this myself.



This is how it's all set up. I've been rehabbing our home from top to bottom, and converted our old kitchen into a dining area. Within this dining area are four sets of lights, all controlled from one box containing four dimmer switches. I set up all the new wiring and installation of the lights in the ceiling, and we paid an electrician to come in, check everything out, set up the multiple switches, and connect it all to the board. It's all new copper wiring from beginning to end, as I didn't want to connect or splice in to the old aluminum wiring that was in place. All the new wiring and lights are on a dedicated 15 amp breaker. Three of the sets of lights were set up to be available from the day the electrician came around. The fourth, for the track light over the bar, was left hanging from the ceiling capped off and with the switch off, as I still had work to do installing an overhead wine rack, under which the track was going to be set.



Two days ago I finally got around to putting the track up, but after setting it in place and connecting the power up the lights wouldn't work. I took the lights out to our kitchen, where I installed another track light system some time ago, plugged one of the lights in, and it worked just fine. I then went back to the bar area and used a spare track, then a spare connector, to see if I could isolate the fault, yet neither of the items provided a solution. Now here's the weird bit - every time I tried checking the system out, I'd get 120 volts showing from the wiring and from the track when I'd test with the multimeter. But the second I'd put a light into the track, the multimeter would drop to zero on the voltage reading on either the wiring or the track. Take the light fixture back out, and the voltage would pop back up. Inserting the light was thus completing some kind of odd loop. It wasn't just one light - I double checked by grabbing working lights from the kitchen track and inserting them into the other track - the same problem would pop up. Finally, having come to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with the track at all, I took the whole assembly over to a nearby wall outlet, used some spare electric cable to connect up to the appropriate slots - presto, the light came on! I even double checked all this by grabbing another light fixture destined for our bathroom, and tried connecting it to the wiring over the bar. Nothing. Yet as with the track light, the minute I took it over to the wall outlet and connected it, the light worked.



So everything logically points to the fact it has to be something to do with this individual circuit, right, because a) the light fixtures work when plugged into another circuit and b) the other three dimmers and lights hooked up in the same box work fine and draw power from the same wire cable/breaker combination. The only things left that I can think of is that the electrician has either wired the dimmer switch up incorrectly or that there's some kind of flaw inside the switch itself. Does this make sense?



A friend also told me to double-check to make sure that the black wire feeding power to the light was indeed the hot wire, and it is.  If I touch it with the black test lead from the multimeter and put the red one to the neutral I show 120 volts. If I keep the black test lead on the black wire and put the red test lead to the ground - I also show 120 volts.



A final point. I know I'm not overloading the circuit - not even close. With all four dimmers maxed and every light on - including the test light on the track - I'd only be drawing 8 amps on a 15 amp breaker, besides which I'm only using one set of lights while I'm working on this problem anyway. This is a dedicated circuit, so there's no additional power being drawn away by something else.



So how am I getting 120 volts from this wiring, according to my multimeter, yet it won't light up ANYTHING and keeps giving off the indication that some kind of loop or short is being created every time I actually plug a light into the track? It's got me totally stumped.



Anyone have any ideas?
      

Greetings!

I'm hoping for some help, I bought a house recently where the laundry room light switch does not work. I found this in the ceiling box:



Two black wires capped off

One white wire capped off

Three white wires going to the fixture

Two black wires going to the fixture



I replaces the switch to rule that out and it still doesn't work.



There is one black and one white wire going to the switch.



Any ideas on how to wire it properly?



Thanks!