I’m doing a little electrical on a remodel that I’m working on right now. And I’ll start of by saying I’m no electrician. But when I wired a switch to an exterior porch light, when I switch on the breaker the light comes on. As soon as I try to turn the light switch off, it blows the breaker. Any suggestions anyone as to what I’m doing wrong? Like I said, I’m no electrician. But I do know that ain’t normal. Thanks
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Sounds to me like you've got a hot and a neutral wire at the switch, and when you throw it you have a dead short.
A switch is really a break in a hot wire (although the romex wire has a black and a white, for example, both are hot).
You probably have the wires going first to the light and then to the switch. In the light box, you should have connected the black wire which goes to the switch to the black supply, and the white wire from the switch should be wrapped with black tape and then connected to one of the wires from the light. The white supply wire goes to the other wire from the light. At the switch it's good practice to wrap the white wire with black tape, but it should be obvious to anybody that both wires at a switch are potentially hot wires.
John
Where is AJ when you need him? Damn, this woulda been fun.
Down da bayou,
KK
that's what I was thinking too!
maybe the other guy that had no clue but was sure he was smarter than the codes can help.
JeffBuck Construction Pittsburgh,PA
Fine Carpentery.....While U Waite
Stating the obvious. The switch is miswired. The switch is likely controlling a direct hot-neutral or hot-ground connection. It might not be the right type of switch. A three way looks much like a Single Pole Single Throw (SPST) switch until you notice the extra screw and the lack of off/on marking on the toggle.
Without having more information I can't trouble shoot the situation. Pictures, diagrams and detailed descriptions, how many cables and wires are present, would help greatly.
It doesn't sound like a major problem unless someone got carried away and disconnected every box within 50'. I have seen a ten minute job grow to major proportions when a HO tried to find errors that weren't there. After not having power in half the house for two days the mans wife called in professional help. Took us half a day to get back to square one and replace the single defective switch that caused the initial problem.