I grew up learning the older approach to wiring light switches.
Power feeds to the light. Black tied to a switch wire. It returned from the switch and fed the light. Switch wire was typically 14/2 because it’s only completing the circuit. Power wires were 12/2 with ground. Sometimes, bedroom lights and receptacles shared a circuit
I never wasted time looking in a switch box for a power tie in. Power is in a receptacle box or light box.
Today. I’m seeing power feed to the switch box. A 12/2 feeds switched power to the light.
Somehow, that seems backwards.
I’m slowly getting used to seeing it that way. But, it still bugs me a little.
Not an electrician but I’ve played one in my own and some of my friend’s houses. About half the time it’s convenient to feed power to the box first, so it’s never seemed weird.
It’s now mandatory to have a neutral in the switch location, either by feeding the box first or using 14/3 in a switch loop. People want to use motion sensors and electronic dimmers and with no guarantee and incandescent lamp will be in the socket you can’t use the trick of bleeding power to run the device through the lamp. So people were doing unsafe things like tying the neutral of the motion sensor to the safety ground to get it to work.
I learned the same way you did, but it seems that most of the switch boxes in my house (except for some three-ways) have the power feeding directly to the switch. Saving money on junction boxes? Beats me.
Mdcastle is correct. Nowadays, most new homeowners would be disappointed to find that they don’t have access to all three conductors of a branch circuit at their switches. In my experience, it doesn’t really take any more (or less) cable to wire one way or the other.
OTOH, it’s much easier to get access to a j-box from an attic in order to feed new devices than it is to get access to a receptacle or switch, so I feel your pain. This is not usually a big concern of an electrician when wiring a house during construction.
I’ve done most of my wiring in 50-100 yo two story farmhouses. Power is distributed through the basement and attic. Upstairs went as OP described typically (accounting for knob and tube.) Downstairs stopped at the switch on the way to the light about half the time. Depends on the era the house got electrified.
I don’t do much new wiring. Once in awhile I’ll help out a friend with a new light or receptacle.
I started using the new, required methods a few years ago.
I often see the older method in pre-1980’s homes. Tens of millions were built for the baby boomers in the fifties. That wiring will be in service for decades to come.
I do like the new J-box push-in connectors. I prefer them now, over twist connectors. I’ve seen too many loose ones in old boxes. Seeing a wire connector off and in the bottom of the box is always a bad moment.
I’ve only used the push-in types. I think their safety record is proven. I won’t reuse one. Throw it out and use a fresh one for a secure connection. Imho
They do make one now with levers. I don’t see the point in making them easier to take off and reuse.
A bag of 500 is less than $10. I see no need to ever reuse a push-in connector.
You are describing a switch leg. In older houses they were frequently done that way, they also put half the freaking house on one circuit. They ran a circuit hitting every box that would need power along the way. Then they added a switch leg to any of the boxes you wanted a switch for.
Switch legs have fallen out of favor. Some of the newest styles of switches require a neutral, so it’s much better to run a feed and a load to the switch box, then the switch also has access to the neutral.
I love the Wago connectors (the ones with the lever). They’re easy to use, wires don’t pull out of them, but you can spin/pivot them a bit if you need to and unlike the push in ones and I do, from time to time, need to remove and reinstall them.
It’s nice to be able to pop one off that has two holes and use one with three so I can add another wire, then reuse the original one at some other time.
It should also be mentioned, for as much electrical work as I do, I’ve never gotten good at twisting wire together. I mean, I can do it, but it’s always been a PITA for me. Those wago (or the push in ones, if you like them) are much easier. The downside that I’ve noticed is that they take up a lot more space in the box.
I’ve found myself doing quite a bit of DIY work of late, and they are a godsend.
They do take up more space, but I got to thinking about it and if you have three or four conductors twisted and classically wire nutted, that can be hard to maneuver in the box.
With the Wagos, I’ve found it’s nice to kind of be able to tuck each wire somewhat individually.
I’ll get some Wago’s and try. They look like a cool design.
I agree JoeyP. Twisting wires is always a PITA. Too much and they break. Too little and you have a dangerous connection that can over heat.
Some newer products are definitely an improvement. This old dog is still learning new tricks.
I really love the receptacles with two usb charger ports. I buy 3 cables, with mini, micro, and kindle connecters. Tie into a bundle and hang from the charger ports. I can charge any usb device in my house.
Wagos are advertised as taking up less space, but what I’ve found is that if you have 3+ wires all nicely twisted, from the wire nut and down an inch or two, it’s a lot easier to manipulate them in a box than 3 or 4 wires lined up next to each other.
Another thing I really, really like about them is that I can work on wires hot. For example, if I’m swapping out, say, a fluorescent light ballast in my store, I can shut off a bank of lights, open up the one I’m working on, cut the line/neutral wires, strip them and put a Wago connector on each one. I can now go and turn that bank of lights back on and work inside of it safely. When the new ballast is in, I just, carefully, put the wires from it, into the other side of the connectors and I’m done.
In a home, probably not a big deal one way or the other, in my store, I don’t like having banks of lights off any longer than necessary. In fact, I’ve been using a ton of them lately (was just using them a few minutes ago, still have some in my pocket) as I replace all my fluorescent tubes with LEDs. With these, the lights are only out for a minute or two instead of the entire time I’m working on it.
IIRC, I believe I learned about them from BigCliveDotCom.
Wagos are nice for stranded wire, like from a light fixture. The regular push-in ones say they’ll work with stranded, but it’s just about impossible to push it, then assuming you get it pushed in you can’t reuse the connector.
I disliked two wire switch loops even before the new code required a neutral. Using a white wire as a hot offended my OCD, and worse I disliked poking around trying to figure out a circuit wondering if that white wire really was a neutral, or a hot wire that some Bob Villa wannabe never bothered to wrap black tape around. When doing my own wiring I would use switch loops if convenient but always use three wire romex.
If you look at the home automation forums, they’re full of question like “I don’t have a neutral at my switch location, what do I do?”. Now that computers are cheaper people wanting smart controls (or even just motion detectors or electronic dimmers) at their switches are getting more and more common. The original solution with the 1970s vintage X10 system was to use the incandescent light bulb as the return path for the power to operate the control, so there was actually a small amount of electricity at the socket. (You could pull out a small lever on the switch to physically disable it if you didn’t like relamping a hot socket). The new way is to reassign the wires to the switch location as hot and neutral (instead of hot and hot-switched) to provide power to the control, then it remotely controls another unit mounted above the fixture that does the switching. The problem with that approach is that you have to take down the fixture, normally residential electricians are none too generous with box sizes, and above a hot light is not where you want electronics.
The whole LED thing is a mess when it comes to anything beyond a straight on/off switch.
A while back I installed an LED in a fixture controlled by a (properly installed) occupancy sensor. The LED flickered and I had to upgrade the switch. Since the original switch uses a small amount of electricity to work, there was just enough to light the LED, but with an incandescent, you wouldn’t see it. The new ones, for LEDs, use a relay so it’s not possible for any electricity to make it’s way to the bulb.
Just recently, I installed some LED lights in my kitchen, controlled by a dimmer with a small (LED or neon) pilot light, which I think was rated for working with LEDs. The new bulbs did all kinds of odd stuff. I replaced the dimmer and now they’re flickering and buzzing and basically unusable. Replace with new LEDs and everything is fine now.
I was kinda surprised to see the manufacturer lists compatible bulbs for each of it’s dimmers.
Hopefully we’ll get over this hump soon and be back to the days of putting any bulb in any socket without having to wonder if it’s going to work or checking compatibility charts.
All the current went through that switch loop, so it should be #12 wire also.
(It is unlikely to ever be a problem, because wire can typically carry more than the rated power, and because most lighting circuits never approach the #14 current limit (especially now, with CFL/LED replacing incandescent bulbs).
