Light Switch Replacement - Other Outlets Not Working

cuerp0 · 10-08-2012, 11:16 PM

I am trying to replace a standard light switch with a dimmer switch

. I took out the old switch and installed the new one and now the rest of the outlets in the room don't wont. The light (and dimmer) both work fine.

Please see the images below. There are three wires coming out of the switch, two black and one green. I assume that the green is the ground. There were three black wires all coming out of the wall, and a big clump of exposed copper wiring.

I have the two black wires from the switch connected to the two black wires that I remember were connected to the two screws on the old switch. I connected the green wire to the other wire that was coming out of the old switch. This configuration gave me the results that were described above.

Additionally, I tried connecting the green wire to the black wire AND the copper coil and got the same results.

Any suggestions as to what's going wrong?

Gac66610 · 10-08-2012, 11:47 PM

The black wire, which appears to be connected to the bare wires, needs removed before anything else.

Then tie that black wire to the other black wire that comes from the bottom of the box, then to the dimmer.

Get proper wire nuts just taping them is a hazard waiting to happen, if you used the small (useless) wire nuts that come with the dimmer then taped, ok,
but you wont get two blacks and the dimmer wire under one, so you will need to get one correctly sized for it.

joed · 10-09-2012, 08:43 AM

You have three black wires not two. The third one needs to be connected to the power feed black.

cuerp0 · 10-09-2012, 11:48 PM

Many thank to both of you for your help.

I was able to switch the wires around as you said and now all of the outlets are working. On my first try I mistakenly connected the dimmer to control all of the outlets as well as the light, but fixed that on the second time around.

I also stopped by the store and picked up some larger wire nuts, which made the job a lot easier (and presumably the installation safer).

Cheers!