Electrical – Florescent lights replaced with LED

electrical

I replaced my old florescent lights with LED. Turned the breaker on, light worked fine, however, the light switch will not turn the light off or on(constant on). Replaced the switch, same problem. It looks like a junction box on the ceiling, 3 black wires, 3 white wires and the ground. 3 black are hot(of course) 2 of the white are not but one white is hot. Any suggestions? Should I hook the hot white with the black? enter image description hereenter image description here

Note from OP: Wiring 3 black twisted together, 2 white twisted together, and the hot white is a solid wire insulated.

Best Answer

You have an old-style switch loop

A common wire-saving trick up until very recently was to use a /2 cable to run a switch loop, with one wire for the always-hot and the other for the switched-hot. This means that a white is used for a hot, though, which is why the NEC specifies that the hot white is supposed to be tagged with a wrap of black (or some other color than white, green, or grey) electrical tape. However, lazy installers often skipped that because it was "obvious", and the NEC gave them the latitude to do so up until recently.

So, grab some black (or better yet, red) electrical tape and wrap it around the solo white wire -- this connects to the fixture black wire, as it's the switched-hot. The fixture white wire connects to the bundled white wires, which are the neutral. Grounds connect together, of course (although you'll have to cut off the crimp used and replace it with a wirenut), and the existing bundle of black wires is not touched (as it's the always-hots -- your existing problem was caused by connecting the fixture black to the bundle of black wires).