Good news! I did not electrocute myself and my house has not burned down yet!

[struggle4progress]

I have a hall light controlled by two switches. Unfortunately, one switch went all fritzy

Sometimes the light wouldn't work at all unless that switch was in a particular position

Then everything was working okay again, except that the fritzy switch sometimes made buzzy-sparky sorts of noises in one position

I am really not such a big fan of outlets or switches that make electrical noises

So I replaced the switch. Of course, IT was fifty years old and the NEW one wasn't quite the same. So I had to look at it and the other one and then the wiring diagram and make a guess about which wire was supposed to connect where and cross my fingers

No amps rushing through my body! No big explosions! No small explosions! No smoke or flames shooting out of my walls!

Also the switches seem to work as intended again!

I've survived another exciting half hour!

[samnsara]

1. WOOHOO!!

[struggle4progress]

10. Stayed tuned for my adventures as a plumber!

Will the gas main blow? Will the stove short out? How hard can this really be?

[Turbineguy]

2. And another Great Moment

in electricity!

[GentryDixon]

3. Check back in tomorrow morning!

😀

[struggle4progress]

4. :)

[MicaelS]

5. Just do not put any pennies ...

When a fuse blows.

[Wounded Bear]

6. As someone who has worked with electricity for most of my life...

you should probably replace both switches.

[struggle4progress]

7. I actually did buy two, thinking that if one died at age fifty the other might not be far behind.

So I expect I'll get around to it

But while I was picking up hardware, I got stuff for several other pressing projects which I may handle first

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Just to check -- you did make sure you threw the right curcuit breaker for that light first, right ?

NEVER trust the juice to be off, unless you've at least double-checked.

[struggle4progress]

9. My procedure was: (1) turn on the hall light; (2) find and flip the breaker

that turns the hall light off; and then (3) do NOT assume that the breaker actually interrupts the HOT wire

SLOGAN: My stupidity or somebody else's fuck-up are not causes I am eager to die for

[eppur_se_muova]

11. OK, (3) is not something I've ever heard of being violated ...

... but knowing how screwed-up the wiring in this house is, it's something to check.

I know there's a light downstairs where turning off the light switch still leaves one side of the lamp socket hot. Apparently this light was put in as an afterthought (as was the whole room) and they did things the "easiest" way ... Now I need to drop the VOM across the wires to check if the CB is actually doing what it's supposed to be wired to do.

[struggle4progress]

12. I've actually encountered (3) in an old house where a fuse box had been replaced later

by a breaker box: moreover, in that case, neither the breaker box nor the wall switch interrupted the hot line; both interrupted the ground

The house predated modern electrical codes, so the whole mess was probably legal as long as nobody messed with it, though I suspect the replacement of the fuse box by a breaker box should have triggered a code compliance inspection

I discovered that one because I actually checked which wire was hot before tripping the breaker because I didn't want the ceiling fixture socket to have a hot sleeve when I was done; and then it seemed easy to double-check wires again after tripping the breaker

Whenever possible, it's good to know what you're dealing with