Has anyone seen this type of switch before?

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Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Retired Electrical Contractor
This is the strangest switch I have ever seen. It appears the neutrals are connected thru the yoke and the hot wire passes thru to the bar at the bottom right and presumably is switched to the switch leg on the bottom left.
Anyone seen this before.

1663508807607.png
 

Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Yes it is Leviton but notice that all the switches are off yet Leviton is on the left side on one switch and the right side on the other tw.
 

roger

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Fl
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I wonder if the switch yoke was actually designed for connecting the neutrals or if it's the work of a DIYer of times gone by.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Retired Electrical Contractor
Why would someone go thru the trouble of drilling the yoke and installing screw, btw, that totally match the others. I tend to think this switch is what it is---bizarre
 

roger

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Fl
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Good point and now I see the mounting screws at the bottom.
 

Dennis Alwon

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Chapel Hill, NC
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Good point and now I see the mounting screws at the bottom.
It seems that box is a specialty box for those switches

Btw Roger, If you highlight the text you want to quote there is a reply message that appears. If you hit that you will get a quote as I did here
 

Jraef

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San Francisco Bay Area, CA, USA
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I agree, there is an old town near me where I have seen these used extensively, because many of the houses were built pre-electricity, so they had a lot of surface mount wiring and devices used, especially where they had used old gas piping for running wires into light fixtures. Since the entire box was Bakelite it was non-conductive, so no ground wires back then and no real risk of that neutral yoke contacting anyone once the cover was on. First time I saw one I was confused too, but my old J-man who had started working in the 40s explained them to me.
 

James L

Senior Member
Location
Kansas Cty, Mo, USA
Occupation
Electrician
Looks like they're meant to feed through neutrals, but theyre actually switching the neutrals.

The strap on the right side seems to tell me that. Screenshot_20220918-124555_Chrome.jpg
 
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