Quick question with hopefully an easy answer. I had a dimmer switch go bad on a light in a dining room. I bought a new switch and put it in. It was working fine, so I thought, then I noticed that when the dining room light is off, the dimmer works on everything else on the circuit, for example outside lights, hall lights, etc. I can dim all of those things when this switch certainly didn't do that before. Also, if the dining room light is on, all of the other things on the circuit I mentioned before do not work at all. I've obviously incorrectly wired the switch somehow, any thoughts on what I did incorrectly and how to fix?
Funny to me but not for you! Not to worry I'll try to help you out, when you were replacing the switch it sounds to me that you crossed the hot and the switch leg. Open the switch up and turn the power off a the breaker before you go into the switch swap the leads by that I mean connect the leads from the top of the switch to the bottom of the switch and bottom to top hopefully this will solve your problem.
Not sure how to answer this. You only had to remove and reinstall 2 wires from the old to the new switch. You obviously disconnected more wires than needed and screwed it up. No way to tell you what you did wrong without actually being there and sorting out your mess. Sorry , now you need a pro, or you have to go thru it one by one until you find the original wire going to the light, then reconnect everything else the way it was. maybe getting an electrician or someone that knows what they are doing may prevent a wire fire in your walls as you obviously do not know enough about wiring to fix it yourself
The problem is going to be the THREE black wire connections. You have to identify the INPUT POWER wire to the box, the DINING ROOM wire and the 'EVERYTHING ELSE wire. Separate the three black wires. Measure between each black wire and the white wire bundle. The black wire that has 120 vac on it is your INPUT POWER wire. Momentarily connect the black INPUT POWER wire to each of the other two black wires. One of those other two black wires will light up the dining room light. It is that black wire that gets connected to the LOAD connection on the dimmer switch. The other black wire is your EVERYTHING ELSE wire. Connect that wire to the INPUT POWER wire. Run a pigtail from those two wires to the LINE connection of the dimmer switch.
I read this right after you posted it and for the life of me, can't figure this out. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe its the couple of drinks I have had tonight. Either way, it isn't making sense to me. However, I will tell you how to solve it. First of all, get a cheap muliti-tester. Check the voltage across a white and a black (the black could be a red or another color; any color except green, that's a ground) until you get a reading between 110-125V AC. Those are your power leads. Connect ALL the white leads together and cap them using a wire nut. Next, carefully grab the INSULATED part of the hot black lead and touch them in turn to the others. (There will be a small spark, but as long as you are only touching insulation, you will not get shocked. If you are nervous about this, use two pairs of insulated handle needle-nose pliers to grab the wires, but still, only grab the insulated part.) One should turn on the light in the DR and the other(s) should turn on the power elsewhere. Make a note of what is what. At that point, the wiring becomes simple. Attach the black hot lead to one of the lugs (or wires if that is what it has) of the dimmer switch AND to the black lead(s) that power other fixtures elsewhere. The black lead that you touched to the hot lead that turned on the DR light gets attached to the other side of the dimmer. That should solve your problem. Good luck. If you need additional help, email me.
Your switches are wired so that they can both control the light. That is: you can turn it ON with switch 1 and turn off with switch 2, and vice-versa. These are called two-way switches. They have three wires connected to each switch to enable this clever stuff to happen. Your dimmer switch has two terminals because it is a conventional one-way switch and intended to be used all on its own. It not possible to convert the conventional dimmer switch into a two-way switch and it would be almost impossible for you to convert the circuit to use a 2-way switch in conjunction with the dimmer. You won't be able to buy a two-way dimmer for domestic use. Sorry, but you want to do is impossible without some very specialised knowledge and expensive kit, It's not practical for domestic circumstances. The best thing you can try is to get an adaptor to plug into the light socket which will act as a dimmer. The bulb plugs into the bottom of the adaptor. The pair of two-way switches will operate as normal and the adaptor device will do the dimming for you. These things usually have a remote control to work the dimming circuit. Cost about ?15-?29. Try the better electrical shops such as Maplin or John Lewis. EDIT. They are not three-way switches like TJ suggests. These are different things entirely. You would have three of them and even more wires behind them. The dimmer switch does not operate by reducing voltage like another person suggests. They are not simple variable resistors. Dimmer switches contain special circuits which modify the alternating current waveform. This is one reason why they cannot be used with energy-saver bulbs or transformer-fed low voltage bulbs.
