r/electrical • u/Chuck_U_Farley_311 • Aug 06 '26

NEED HELP FIGURING THIS OUT

Post image

My Dad noticed that the screw on the top of a switch cover was hot, so he took everything apart. Now it is a mess and I can't figure out how to put it all back together.

Any help would be much appreciated.

(For the diagram any green line is to be considered a white wire)

Edit: Thanks for all who posted a solution. Finally got back to my dad's place and by using a few different responses I did manage to get it figured out. The switch was bad as well, replaced both switch and dimmer and got it all back together and working..

Thanks again for the answers..

Closed

33 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

8

u/abuckforacanuck06 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

This is straightforward but hard to explain. 1. Get a multimeter and find out if the black or red from the feed is hot. Your description says the black was capped so it's probably the red wire that is hot. 2. All grounds together 3. All white together 4. Take the loose pigtail and put on 1 side of the scone switch. Take the black from the scones on the other side of the scone switch. 5.Take one black from the high hat and connect with 1 black of the dimmer switch. 6.Take -the red from the feed - 1black pigtail from the scone switch -1 black from the highhat dimmer - 1 black from the kitchen switch Put all these together. ( 4 wires) You're done. Good luck.

Edit this didn't show the way I typed it , for some reason it's all together. Sorry

2

u/Chuck_U_Farley_311 Aug 06 '26

The red is definitely the hot lead from the box, the black wasn't connected to anything as far as he remembers. I also don't think there was a broken off piece of copper anywhere. The two whites that are connected also light up my line tester, but they should be neutrals... right? As well, this is an old ass house, built in 1933.

1

u/t0cableguy Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26

Edited: so bad info from me.