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Zaappp - Not that wire!

A few months ago, we bought a fixer-upper home. In my spare time I am doing little odd jobs along with emptying boxes - months later and still a lot of boxes to trip over! This week I wanted to replace the dimmer wall switch on my light in the bedroom. The old one was missing a handle, didn’t really match with the rest of the house and being one who likes symetry and uniformity to a certain degree, I decided to replace it.

Now, I have replaced plugs and light switches in an entire house before, so this should not be too much problem right? Well after shutting down the circuit breaker and removing the old switch. I was ready to wire in the new one. Hmmm… these wires are a little odd. There was a continuous circuit as well as the usual hot and neutral wires. Okay, just wire it the same as the old switch and all will be well.

Screwed in the switch, the cover and turned on the circuit breaker. Yeah, it works! I thought “hmmm that was a little to easy.”

Later that night, I went to turn on the hallway lights and …. nothing. No light, nada, zilch. Urrgghhh.

Okay what to do now. I wired it exactly as before, so what could be the cause? Well, I am humble enought to know my limits. So I called my contractor friend, who gave me the number of an electrician. I described the problem and he said “Have you tried reversing the wires?” Uh, no. Didn’t think of that.

So in the dark, I undid everything and redid the switch connection with the wires reversed. Yippee all is well. Hall lights work and the dimmer works! Patched it all up and went to bed happy. Lesson learned: don’t assume that the same is the correct way!