I have power coming into box from black and white wires. When wiring black to light switch and white to white leading to fixture, the breaker goes every time. When wiring the two whites together with power on, there are sparks. What am I doing wrong?
Wiring – Simple light switch wiring isn’t working
lightingwiring
Related Solutions
No way from here to know which wire fed the light or fan, but you have a continuous hot feed into the box that fed the receptacle, light and fan. The third wire, maybe it fed the fan or maybe something something else farther down the line, if the latter that needs to be tied in 100 percent to the hot feed. All whites still tied together, blacks to the dimmer from the light and hot. All grounds tied together set with a screw to the metal box. Securing the ground to the box is not needed if the box is plastic.
Before I got too wordy, here is a sketch
Still have to learn to format better
The sketch is a little rough, it should get the idea across I hope
You can't have one switch operate light OR fan. Many jurisdictions absolutely require that a switch on the wall near a room entrance, control a lamp. That is to benefit house guests and mainly from the government's perspective, first responders. There's an exception to allow a switched outlet instead, presuming a person is going to plug a floor lamp into that. There is no exception to allow a fan/light locally switched at the fan. (such things can exist, they can't be the only light). That said:
They now make gadgets to solve the "I have 14/2 and wish I had 14/3" problem. Each has a smart switch (typically 1-gang) with 2 controls, and a control module which sits under the fan shroud. The switch communicates with the module either via powerline networking or via wireless, and some of those are compatible with smartphones or integrated home-automation systems as are now emerging in the market.
Best Answer
First working with power on is wrong, I am an electrician and rarely do this , if I do I usually wear hot gloves and other safety equipment. If the hot is coming in to the switch box the whites should be tied together then the black hot to the switch and the black to the lamp on the other side of the switch. With the white wire sparking and either the black disconnected or switch turned off you may be working on a switch loop, look in the box at the light and send us a clear photo of those wires if more than 1 set going to the light, especially if you see a black wire connected to a white in the box and we can provide better help. I would also change the lamp, I have had incandescent lamps internally short and trip a 20 amp breaker when turned on, but if you have a hot white wire it may be a switch loop so we need to figure that out.