How to Replace a Light Switch
All right. We're gonna replace this dimmer light switch. In order to do that, I've already pulled off the front cover. So the next step is remove the light switch from the wall itself. Now, as is the dimmer switch, it's got more stuff in the back of it, but that's okay. It's still a switch. All switches fundamentally do is break a circuit.
In this case, in the walls, I've got a black wire. And a white wire, and they are one complete circuit that goes up to the light on the top of the wall. To replace these, I remove the wire nuts carefully.
And then I can disconnect the switch. Now the careful part comes into play because I've locked out, tagged out the circuit, but I have yet to verify that the circuit is in fact dead since this is the first time I can access the wires. So the first test I can use, uh. Non-contact voltage tester, and this indicates it's, it's has zero volts.
My preference is actually to use a volt meter and you test between any wire and ground. Zero volts and the other wire and ground, and I have zero volts. Now that we have our switch removed and we've verified that power is turned off, it's time for me to figure out how to wire in my new switch. Now, this switch was designed to be either a single pole or a three-way switch by reading the instructions. I know that the copper colored. Terminal is the common and the brass colored terminal is the travelers, since I'm only gonna be hooking up the copper to brass, that just has the power going through the switch so that the, uh, toggle will turn the light off and on when it's functional.
Because these are standard threaded connections. I need to bend the ends of my wire to determine how much wire I need to expose. There is, on the back of the switch, there is a strip gauge. That gives me an indicator for how much copper or how much insulation I need to remove, how much copper I need to expose of the wire.
Once that's done, I can use my wire. Strippers have this little hole in the stripper that enables me to bend the perfect hook to go around my threaded terminals.
Once that's done, national electrical code requires that when you put wires onto threaded terminals, you do it so that the hook goes in the direction of tightening. In other words, I put it on this way, and since I'm gonna tighten the screw to the right, that causes the wire to be pulled tighter into the connection.
And all electrical connections. We want to be clean and tight. I'll do the same thing to the other side with the uh, uh, traveler side of the switch.
Once that's complete, all that's left is connecting the ground because the ground is exposed. Copper, it's not that big a deal that I have exposed, uh, wire in this case, that silver color that you can see there right next to the copper. Once this is finished, I tuck everything back into the box. And then making sure that nothing is exposed and sparking, turn back on the power and test the circuit.
