Purchased a new chandelier and put it in where an old one used to be. All the wiring connections are correct, yet the dimmer switch has no affect on the light. When the breaker is on, the lights are on... regardless of the status of the dimmer switch. I thought I might need a new dimmer switch, but I just hooked the new one up and had the same problem. I'm not an electrician, but I'm no dummy... I NEED HELP. Please give me some answers.

What wires were coming out of the ceiling box, colors? What wires are on the light fixture?

I know its old wiring. There were three whites and two blacks... the whites have two wire nuts at two different places(seemed weird). The light fixture's wire had two options coming off it(one is smooth black... and the other is ribbed black)... they indicated the ribbed would connect the white... and the smooth to the black... did both... checked... same problem... switched them(just incase)... same problem. A buddy of mine seems to think somewhere between the fixture and the switch there is a short. And to make things worse... we were looking at it today... checking wires... shut breaker off prior to... when we finished... tried to turn back on... and the breaker blew.

Okay, let's try it his way, please.

When you looked into the ceiling box what did you see.

With the light fixture removed, was there three whites and two blacks or are you counting the fixture's wire in with the power conductors.

I ask this because it sounds to me that you incorrectly installed the switch circuit.

From your sketchy description, I think you have one supply cable (Black - White - Ground) and one switch loop cable, (White, mark the white with black tape or black magic marker. <I use a black sharpie.> This will feed the switch.

Connect the re-marked white to the black supply conductor.

The black that returns from the switch will connect to the light fixture's black.

The white from the supply cable will connect to the light fixture's white or ribbed.

There is another way to wire the light fixture but until I know exactly what is inside the ceiling junction box I will not know for sure.

The alternative way is to feed power from a source. Black gets cur at the switch and one end goes on the lower screw terminal and the other goes to the top screw terminal on the switch. White passes through the Device box (unless it is needed for the dimmer) and goes to the White on the fixture. The black from the top of the switch goes to the light fixture.

But this would mean that when you looked into the box, there would have been one supply cable.

That's why I believe you have a switch loop.

One final thought, are there more than one light being controlled by this switch?

OK... so my electrician buddy came over... and... where the chandelier was hooked up... there was a ground wire that was also white(I think)... so we had to indentify which wires were which... and when we did the problem was pretty much solved... the switch was installed correctly... but being that the wiring was old... and whomever messed with it before decided to make things as difficult as possible... it made something simple... a pain in the butt. It would be pretty hard to solve an electric issue without seeing it... but your advice definitely helped. Thanks.