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arcwick08 · Feb 20, 2009, 09:25 AM

New member! Thanks in advance to all who try and help me out... here is my situation/setup:

I'm remodeling a bathroom serviced by a single (gfci) circuit. Where the circuit entered the room, in the junction box it was pigtailed off to supply power to an outlet and a vanity light.
I wanted to add, switched, overhead light. So I ran a new piece of 14/2 romex to the junction box, and pigtailed the hot/neut/ground to the main wire. This is to bring power to the light/switch.

The switch/light is wired as follows; I've used blue for neutral so it can be seen.

I've got the hot supply wire-nutted to the neutral (marked hot) heading to the switch. Then the hot black from the switch heading to the hot of the light. The neut of the light tied right to the neut of the main line. All the grounds are tied together in the lights junction box.

Here is the problem: Once the circuit is powered up, when I stick my little two lead circuit tester in, it shows nice and bright when the switch is on, but its LED shows dim (not off) when the switch for the light is off. It looks like there is still some current flowing through wire?
Lots of confusion here, any enlightenment as to what may be causing this would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks!

Stratmando · Feb 20, 2009, 10:04 AM

Your wiring looks correct, Is the wire coming from above from GFI Receptacle.
I bet if you remove the bulb, the low voltage would not be seen.
Does the GFI work, and does the light work correctly?

arcwick08 · Feb 20, 2009, 10:10 AM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

Your wiring looks correct, Is the wire coming from above from GFI Recepticle.
I bet if you remove the bulb, the low voltage would not be seen.
Does the GFI work, and does the light work correctly?

The wiring for the light is Not protected by the GFCI outlet, is that what you're asking?
The gfci outlet works correctly in that it cuts current when tested :-)

I've tested for power with the fixture in place (putting the tester leads into the bulb sockets) and with the fixture removed (tester leads on hot/neutral supply wires). Both yield the same results... the evil low-glow on my tester.

Stratmando · Feb 20, 2009, 10:16 AM

What happens with a bulb in place?

arcwick08 · Feb 22, 2009, 05:51 PM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

What happens with a bulb in place?

With bulbs in place, everything appears to operate as it should. Off turns them off, etc.

Stratmando · Feb 22, 2009, 06:43 PM

That's odd, you may not have a problem or you are drawing current when switched off, even though the light is out. With a bulb and a switch. It can usually only be a short, or operate correctly.
Is this a lighted switch? Could explain.

arcwick08 · Feb 23, 2009, 05:45 AM

Originally Posted by Stratmando

Thats odd, you may not have a problem or you are drawing current when switched off, eventhough the light is out. With a bulb and a switch. It can usually only be a short, or operate correctly.
Is this a lighted switch? Could explain.

It's just a normal dipole toggle switch, nothing fancy.
I hooked up my multimeter to it this weekend and in the "off" state, even though the current tester glows, the multimeter registers less than 0V... Do you think this could all be the fault of a bad current tester?