I called an electrician today to help me install These smart dimmers (Amazon link) in my home. For one of the dimmers, he tied up the neutral and ground wires from the dimmer to the copper ground wire in the wall. Is this ok (see picture)?
When he first opened the box, he noticed that there was no neutral wire and then used a voltmeter to see if he can use the copper wire to connect to the neutral. After he concluded it was fine, he connected it and then just capped the green wire off (not connected to anything). When I asked him about connecting the neutral to the copper ground, he said it was fine. He then explained something to me but there was a bit of a language barrier, plus I'm not familiar with electrical work. He then said there are incidences where it is also acceptable to wire the ground, neutral and copper together, so he did that. I also asked him if connecting the three was ok and then he said yes it is safe.
I will also note that I was having a hard time connecting the smart dimmer to my phone when just the neutral and copper were together. Once he added in the ground to the two, it connected to my phone. Not sure if this is a coincidence or not?
Best Answer
If and only if the dimmer's instructions say so
Bootlegging neutral off ground is not allowed, no.
However, a small number of dimmers are made to do that. The instructions say to use ground for neutral if neutral is not available; otherwise they want you to use neutral. This method has been approved by UL, and they approved the instructions as part of that.