Outside Dimmer Switch

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Michael15956

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Customer has an outside switch with a weatherproof cover to switch an outside receptacle for plug-in lights on a pergola. Customer has now asked if the lights can be dimmed somehow. He thought that there is a weatherproof dimmer switch. I said I would check, but I thought that we couldn't dim a receptacle.
 
See 404.14(E). To dim a receptacle the receptacle would have to be a special configuration listed for dimming.

Roger
 
Put in a 2 gang box, give him a regular duplex receptacle on one side and put in a toggle type dimmer on the other side. Then you can use a lever type outdoor cover plate for the dimmer.
Doesn't prevent him from plugging something into it that should not be plugged into a dimmed receptacle though.

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Dennis Alwon said:
Just think what would happen if someone plugged a drill into a dimmed socket :rant:
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The drill would run slower... Handheld power drill motors are universal motors, so voltage control is how you control the speed.

I know what you meant however. There are a lot of loads one could plug into it that would be damaged by low voltage.
 
Jraef said:
Put in a 2 gang box, give him a regular duplex receptacle on one side and put in a toggle type dimmer on the other side. Then you can use a lever type outdoor cover plate for the dimmer.
Doesn't prevent him from plugging something into it that should not be plugged into a dimmed receptacle though.

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Clever idea there Jraef! I think this will work! The receptacle is 8 feet high on this pergola and to be used only for plugin party lights. I can warn the customer not to be the receptacle for anything else.
 
Jraef said:
Put in a 2 gang box, give him a regular duplex receptacle on one side and put in a toggle type dimmer on the other side. Then you can use a lever type outdoor cover plate for the dimmer.
Doesn't prevent him from plugging something into it that should not be plugged into a dimmed receptacle though.
Click to expand...
Nice idea. The lever dimmer pictured either has a dimming toggle with a low end slide setting, which would work, or has an on-off toggle with dimming only via the slide. If the latter, you would have to take the cover off to change the dimmer setting.
Hopefully that will be obvious to anyone who actually tries it, but the image is potentially misleading.
 
Jraef said:
The drill would run slower... Handheld power drill motors are universal motors, so voltage control is how you control the speed.

I know what you meant however. There are a lot of loads one could plug into it that would be damaged by low voltage.
Click to expand...

But the dimmer switch would burn out in most cases- NO
 
GoldDigger said:
Nice idea. The lever dimmer pictured either has a dimming toggle with a low end slide setting, which would work, or has an on-off toggle with dimming only via the slide. If the latter, you would have to take the cover off to change the dimmer setting.
Hopefully that will be obvious to anyone who actually tries it, but the image is potentially misleading.
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Good catch, you're right. The Toggle dimmer would need to be the type that has only the toggle as the dimmer mechanism, not the type that has the slider next to the toggle. I honestly didn't look that closely at the switch image, I was just scrambling to find any image to describe it. The best image was actually on a Home Depot site, but they don't allow referencing to their images.

Here's one that fits the bill... Leviton doesn't allow referencing either though.
http://www.leviton.com/OA_HTML/ProductDetail.jsp?partnumber=6641-W&section=48678&minisite=10251

If it were me, I'd break the tab on the duplex receptacle and only feed the top one from the dimmer, make the bottom one a direct line feed, just in case. Then put a label on it telling the user that the upper one is dimmed.
 
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