Hoping for some help here. My parents recently moved into a new place (older house though) and there is one quirk about it I can't seem to figure out. In one room, the ceiling light is controlled by a switch and works fine until something is plugged into an outlet on one of the walls. Once something is plugged in the outlet, the ceiling light stays on permanently and the light switch now controls the power going to the outlet. This happens for two outlets, both on the same wall. I looked in the ceiling light and there are two 14/2 wires entering the box. One white wire is marked with black tape and crossed with a black wire. I had a quick inspection of the outlets and nothing obvious (didn't see anything loose, etc). Any thoughts on what is going on here.
Electrical – Ceiling light controlled by switch stays on permanently once something is plugged into an outlet
electrical
Related Solutions
Your wiring should look something like this.
- You'll use a twist-on wire connector (or other approved means) to connect the incoming ungrounded (hot) conductor, to three lengths of black wire.
- Connect the first length of wire from the bundle, to a terminal on the single pole switch.
- Connect another length of wire from the bundle, to the common terminal on the double switch (the common terminal should be black, or some other odd color other than green).
- Connect the final length of wire from the bundle, to the brass colored LINE terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductor leading to the light, to the other terminal on the single pole switch.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductors leading to the light/fan, to the terminals on the double switch.
- Connect the ungrounded (hot) conductor leading to the GFCI protected devices, to the brass colored LOAD terminal of the GFCI.
- Use a twist-on wire connector (or other approved means) to combine the incoming grounded (neutral), the grounded (neutral) from the light, the grounded (neutral) from the light/fan, and a length of white wire.
- Connect the length of wire from the neutral bundle, to the silver colored LINE terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect the grounded (neutral) conductor from the GFCI protected devices, to the silver LOAD terminal on the GFCI.
- Connect all grounding conductors in an approved manner.
NOTE: Notice that the grounded (neutral) conductor leading to the GFCI protected devices, is NOT connected to the other grounded (neutral) conductors in the box.
NOTE: Since I don't know the exact devices you're using, the terminal layout of the diagram might not be correct.
Your problem is actually very easy to fix based on the information you've given -- simply replace the outlet with a new one without breaking the tab off the hot side, connect the black wire to the hot screw on the outlet, and cap off the red wire at the outlet with a wirenut instead of connecting it to the new outlet.
Related Topic
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Best Answer
Sounds like poster is not coming back... Short answer is
Look in the receptacles
Usually, receptacles that control lamps are split. This is done by breaking off a tab of metal that resides between the two brass screws on the hot side of the receptacle.
It happens all the time where a novice decides "I'm going to replace all my receptacles for some reason" (color change, weak old receptacles that don't hold, GFCI, you name it.) Because they are a novice, they have no idea how the "tabs" work, and don't even realize "tabs" are a thing. They end up defeating the switched light, have no idea why that happened, don't even know where to start, so they shrug, decide "fix it later" or live with it, and switch the lamps on and off at the lamp.
Or, they do something weirder like break off the neutral tab by mistake.
Regardless, something like that has gone wrong. Look for abnormal wiring in each of the receptacle boxes. Shoot us a photo, and edit your question to add them.