Home Maintenance and Repair
Tips for doing your own home maintenance and repair
Replacing a Faulty Light Switch
Electricity is a wonderful tool that makes our lives much better. Electrical components do not last forever they do wear out. Electrical switches, outlets get so much use over their life time that eventually they will stop working. A light switch will start getting loose. You will no longer be able to sense the clicking on and off and the switch will stop turning the appliance on and off. It will be time to replace it.
You can do it yourself or hire a professional. I will give you steps here on changing any light switch.
Turn off the power to the switch by turning off the breaker in the panel. ( Your breaker panel will be located outside on the wall of the house or possibly in the house behind a door in a closet.) So find the breaker panel and turn off the power to that switch. You can test it by turning the switch on and when you turn off the right breaker the appliance will turn off.
Once your absolutely sure that the power is off get a screw driver and remove the switch plate, then remove the switch. Once you have the switch out of the wall notice how the electrical wires are connected ( write it down draw a map of how the wires are connected to the switch.) It will be important to help you put it back together right.
Take the switch to the hardware store go to the electrical department and buy a new switch. If you chose a different style from the old you may need to get a new switch plate cover. If your not sure what to get ask for help.
Take your parts home and put the new switch any the way the old one came out. This is where writing notes about how the switch was hooked up will be very important. On a standard switch there will only be two wires and a ground it will be hard to mess up, but some switches have more wires on them and getting it backwards will cause things not to function properly.
When changing an electrical socket or outlet you can follow the same steps for changing the switch.
Once your new switch or outlet is in and the cover is in place then you can reset the breaker and enjoy your appliance.
One last thing electricity can kill you if your not careful so please proceed with caution when ever you work with it.