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goatlady · Joined: 19 May 2008 Posts: 2 Location: No. Calif.

I have an older house with an old bathroom light switch. The switch cover is vertical, but the three switches are horizontal; one is the lights, one is the fan, and one is the heater. I bought a new 3-switch light and tried to put it in yesterday. First, upon taking off the switch plate cover, I saw that each switch was separate and also had its own separate grounding wire. I turned on the light switch and had my husband stand there and yell at me when it went out; as I was randomly turning off the circuits outside. Once I got the light out and thought I got the whole thing dead, I started working, but was quickly zapped with a strong buzz, so I tried the heater and fan switches and they were still hot, so out to the breaker box to find another circuit to turn off; which I did and, again, everything was dead.
I got the old switch disconnected and found that the new switch only had one screw for all 3 wires? It was difficult, and crowded, but I got all 3 grounding wires under that one screw, put everything else together, put the cover back on and turned on the circuit.
To my amazement, when I switched the light switch on, it worked, but every time I did it, it also switched the computer in the other room off and on, so back out to the breaker box I went.
I tried a few things, but gave up and put the old switch back in just for safety reasons. When I went back out to turn the circuits back on, the two were in pairs; one went to the light and the bedroom, and one went to the fan, heater and hall; one of the two in the light / bedroom circuit, was did a hard, solid click on, but the other half of that pair was just loosely going back and forth, so I checked inside and that line was not on still. I switched the other half, that was working, back off and then both back on and the loose one went back on and everything worked.
So, today, I still want to put the new switch back in, now that I know I just should've kept monkeying with the circuit switches, but I need to know if the 3 grounding wires are safe in that one screw?

b · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 4:15 am Post subject:

wow.
As far as the ground goes... all the bare wires should be put together under a wire nut with a single ground that goes to the switch. Be careful... sounds like you have a mess in that j-box. The best advice I think I can give to you is to have you get a licensed electrician in there to clean it up.
B

goatlady · Joined: 19 May 2008 Posts: 2 Location: No. Calif.

Thanks; that's what I thought too.