I was called to see why a couple of switches were not working correctly in a bedroom. Apparently there had already been an electrician there before me and said the whole room needed to be rewired.
The HO said a vanity light made a noise and the lights went out and wouldn't come on. So they called an electrician and when he got the lights to work you had to do the the following.
Turn on master bedroom light, then go to bathroom and turn on vanity light. That would turn on master bedroom lights. Once you did that if you turned on the closet lights the master bedroom lights would dim. Oddly enough the vanity lights and bathroom fan still did not work but the switch had power.
Once I started to investigate the switches I found that he had wedged the ground wire under the vanity switch terminal screw. I removed the ground wire wedged under the switch screw and the lights would only work if I jumped my screwdriver from the switch yoke to the terminal screw.
So I located the 15 amp arc fault breaker and checked connections. I found the neutral wire from the breaker was very loose and landed on the ground bar and the egc was landed on the neutral bar. I turned off the breaker and switched the neutral and ground to there correct places . (this a main panel and has bonding strap installed)
Turn breaker on master bedroom switches work correctly, look into the master bedroom box find a black wire capped off. Turns out its the feed to the vanity switches. Ring out wires to verify , hook everything up check voltage, now everything in the bathroom works correctly.
My question is how could the ground energized the bathroom circuit? only when the ground touched the switch terminals would they work. I wouldn't think the neutral bus would back feed the switch. That doesn't make sense. Any help would be appreciated.
The HO said a vanity light made a noise and the lights went out and wouldn't come on. So they called an electrician and when he got the lights to work you had to do the the following.
Turn on master bedroom light, then go to bathroom and turn on vanity light. That would turn on master bedroom lights. Once you did that if you turned on the closet lights the master bedroom lights would dim. Oddly enough the vanity lights and bathroom fan still did not work but the switch had power.
Once I started to investigate the switches I found that he had wedged the ground wire under the vanity switch terminal screw. I removed the ground wire wedged under the switch screw and the lights would only work if I jumped my screwdriver from the switch yoke to the terminal screw.
So I located the 15 amp arc fault breaker and checked connections. I found the neutral wire from the breaker was very loose and landed on the ground bar and the egc was landed on the neutral bar. I turned off the breaker and switched the neutral and ground to there correct places . (this a main panel and has bonding strap installed)
Turn breaker on master bedroom switches work correctly, look into the master bedroom box find a black wire capped off. Turns out its the feed to the vanity switches. Ring out wires to verify , hook everything up check voltage, now everything in the bathroom works correctly.
My question is how could the ground energized the bathroom circuit? only when the ground touched the switch terminals would they work. I wouldn't think the neutral bus would back feed the switch. That doesn't make sense. Any help would be appreciated.
