Help! Electric for dummies. I’m so confused!

last year

I had my old lightswitches and plugs replaced with new levitron and lutrom ones. in several rooms that dont have ceiling lights, the lightswitch used to control a plug; so that you could turn on a pluged in lamp from the light switch. all was well. now, post replacing, nothing works the same. the switch in one room controls all plug sockets in a different room. the light switch in another room seems tied to comlletely different plugs. one day, none of the plug sockets worked in one room until we flipped a switch in a totally different room but flipping that switch off today didnt turn of said sockets.

i just dont get it. the wiring in the walls wasnt changed or touched. at all. so why and how would/could replacing just the switches and plug sockets cause such havok? i assumed switches were pretty standard. eg, how can you mess it up (you undo black wire and redo black wire, repeat) .

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Comments (7)

rwiegand
last year
The data strongly suggest you didn't succeed in reattaching the wires exactly as they were before, or misunderstood the roles of the terminals on the new switches. Probably time to bring in an electrician to sort it out.
3onthetree
last year
There is a very simple thing that it sounds like you missed - when you swapped the new receptacle for the old one, you forgot to break the "tab" on the side that connects the top "plug" with the bottom "plug" on the duplex receptacle. With it in, you only need 1 hot/1 neutral for both "plugs." By breaking that tab, you can wire the top separately than the bottom for a split function.

Start there, and if you still have problems, you may have mixed wires/used the wrong hot from another circuit/combined neutrals from different circuits/messed up 3way travelers/etc. Please be safe and do not do any wiring unless you have a circuit tester (either live or dead).
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kudzu9
last year
Switches are standard, and the wiring didn't change. You just failed to keep track of which wires went on which terminals, whether any of the switches were three-way, and whether the tab was removed on any of the receptacles. Not meaning to be insulting, but, given your lack of electrical knowledge, you need to hire an electrician to sort this out for you and make it safe again. No one here is going to be able to fix all of those problems because it's necessary to trace those circuits.
arakashi
Original Author
last year
Thank you everyone for your pointers/advise. I will try this!!
arakashi
Original Author
last year
uodate: we found one plug in each room that has 2 red and 2 white wires. for this plug, breaking/removing the tab worked, sort of… the switches now control the top plug (so i could plug in a light and control it from the switch), and plugs before the broken tab plug stay on when the wall switch is off, but all plugs past the tab-broken plug recepticle don’t work (with the except of one set, which seems to use the white wire). this includes plugs in a different room from the switch. we tried multiple configurations (breaking both tabs-nothing worked; breaking only the red wire tab-switch worked but no further plugs worked; breaking only white -nothing worked; or no broken tabs-plugs work and if you turn off the switch, they all shut off). so still at a loss…
3onthetree
last year
The situation is pretty easy to figure out. You have a circuit(s) that covers more than one room. You have receptacles that are 1/2 switched to it's rooms switch. You have mistakenly carried the light switch to receptacles beyond the one it's supposed to switch. You have mistakenly disconnected the hot for receptacles that are not switched.

With your muddled descriptions of what you have tried, it seems that you would need an understanding of basic wiring that is not there. Electrical is not something you just try out different configurations. You may only be popping the breaker on these attempts, but that is not a good process. It is time to pay for an electrician. If you can find one, they'll be done in 20 minutes, but expect to pay a premium.
kudzu9
last year
Please get an electrician involved before you do any more damage to the electrical system in your house, and/or create fire and shock hazards... if you haven't already.

Help! Electric for dummies. I’m so confused!

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rwiegand

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Help! Electric for dummies. I’m so confused!

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rwiegand

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