Can you think of any other mistakes made when installing these light switches? Hopefully this was helpful and maybe a good refresher. Please let me know! Thanks!

I am an 80 year old woman, and I just replaced two light switches, after folowing your excellent ande clear directions. The old ones had the wires just stuck in the back, but I stripped the wires, bent them as you showed, and used the two side screws. THANK YOU SO MUCH !

That was actually a good tutorial. I've been an electrician over 30 years. Most of the time these type of videos make me cringe, but you did a good job. One of the first things I learned about switches was not installing them upside down. If correct it will say"ON".. If upside down it says "NO".

I am a single woman DYI-er. I absolutely fear doing electrical work myself, but felt like a switch is a good place to start. So far I like your delivery. You don't talk in a condecending way, but in an educational way. Exactly what I am looking for!

An excellent example of how you can be a successful KZfaqr without the need to be flashy, and annoying .. you are great at what you do. Keep it up. Straight to the point. I love it.

I think the thing I love most about ur vids is that u start your vids w no BS intros. You just get straight to the point. Love it!

I am finally buying my first house at age 49. I've done remodel jobs for others quite a bit. These videos are great. I'm seeing some mistakes I've made in the past. (No dangerous ones) Your videos filled with "right" way really assures me that I won't make those mistakes again. Thank you so much for creating this content. It's funny how small little tricks can save so much time and frustration.

I'm an electrician but it never hurts to watch these videos to make sure I'm still on point lol very good informative video for sure brotha pass the knowledge

I found this video to be so much more helpful than any of the others on this same topic. Very informative! Every question I had was answered and I had tons. I'm trying to learn how to repair things myself, without a man's help. Thanks to this video I feel pretty confident that I can make this repair on my own. I will definitely be checking out your other videos.

You put out very helpful videos for people that aren't 100% sure how to do the installs, thank you. I think one of the worst electrical mistakes being made is continuing to allow mobile home and modular home manufacturers to use those "self-contained" switches and outlets. I've had to replace way too many of those for people that live in those homes. Some not too long ago in a brand new doublewide. I don't know if you have any videos out there for those types or not. Thanks again for your great informative work.

You are absolutely right that electrically, it doesn't matter which terminals are line and load on a two-way (single throw). However, consistency is important, and I always follow the convention of using the bottom terminal for line. This is similar to how we tape the white wire on a backfed cable and use that for the supply. In my estimation, being consistent, even if it doesn't matter, goes a long way to eliminating guesswork and easing troubleshooting.

At 1:15 you point out that we need to wrap the wire around the screw clockwise, so that the wire is pulled under the screw rather than pushed out. Lol! This took me all the way back to 1962 when my physics school teacher showed us this! And I have followed this tip ever since. Rock on!

Lots of good tips in your videos. I'm a DIYer, been wiring stuff for years, way before the internet came along. I learned most of this stuff the hard way by making these mistakes. It's a miracle that I didn't burn a house or two down. When I look at some of my attempts at wiring from 30 or 40 years ago it scares hell out of me. My advice to beginners is to buy a CURRENT copy of "Wiring Simplified", study and learn it until you know it by heart. When an updated copy comes out buy it. Someone's life may depend on it. Follow the code, it is not only for safety but it is a standard that the next sparky expects, a standardized procedure so there are no nasty surprises for the next guy.

Great job! Thank you for doing this in such step by step process.

You did a really good job using the job specific jargon in a clear way that made it easy to understand from context, which is rare for some of these type of videos.

I rely on these videos as guides for small diy projects. Most just tell you what to do, but they don't show what can go or be wrong. This video is really helpful. Thank you.

The last minute was the best. I had a problem with some cheap switches and wall plugs. Replaced them all with the commercial versions. Much easier then using the J hook and better than back stabbing. These are more expensive, but well worth it. I also purchased a screwdriver with the tip your showed, works great on all electrical screws

All excellent information. I recently had to replace all switches & outlets in our home as the contractor used the backstabbing method of wiring. 80% of all connections were failing. The structure of the outlet/switch became unstable, breaking the plastic causing arcing. I noticed the problem one quiet evening while walking past a switch that was on & making a snspping noise. Please pay attention to this. It can become very dangerous.

I appreciate Ms. Lori comment. Much like her this video is exactly what I needed as well. Im a DIYer and a woman but I enjoy fixing things around the house or my rentals. There’s nothing wrong with hiring a professional but it’s not always worth it. This video is informative and simple to understand. Thanks! 🙏 ❤

Super helpful and exactly what I was looking for to finish my light switch switch out!

Other problem with what you cover at 7:50, the "back stabbing method" is if you push the wires in from the back, yet leave the sidewire screws OUT, those screws are now HOT and sticking out the side of switch a substantial amount. This makes is much easier for them to accidentally come in contact with another wire or even touch another switch or outlet in the box. If you use this method, you still need to turn the screws all the way in even though they aren't actually retaining the wire.

After going through and updating the plugs and switches in a 40+ yr old house, I have seen almost all of these mistakes (and made a few myself before fixing them). Thanks so much for the wonderful video and taking the time to explain these.

The video helps me understanding about where the 'white' wires on the light switch should be connecting to.

I love how thoroughly you cover all of the issues. It's like you have asked those questions yourself and found out for us. Great attention to detail while showing what you are talking about.

I just learned how to change out outlets this week (son taught me). I got ready to change my garbage disposal switch & and it's a bit different! So far, you cleared up my confusion on why I had no copper ground. Hopefully, before it's over, I'll find out why I have 3 black wires & no white.

You always do an excellent job explaining things-much appreciated!!😁👍

A great refresher video for us DIYers. Thanks for the tutorial.

I'm digging these - thanks. I should've watched before I swapped out half the lights in my house, and now I'm doing my smart switches. This also helps me troubleshoot some stuff from before I moved in.

Thank you for the tip on the drill driver no strip bits. Wish I would have found those years ago but glad I have them now.

I’ve been watching your channel for a few months now. I’m getting ready to buy a fixer-upper home and now I feel much more comfortable and confident with rewiring a box if I need to I love your channel. Thank you so much for doing this.

A tricky mistake is in assuming the existing stuff in the wall is normal/done correctly. Having someone experienced advise as you learn is invaluable. Miscolored wires, improper multiwire branch circuits, partial faults, are examples of things that could be lead to trouble without the right theory and experience background to recognize. A dangerous case I had was someone who fixed a tripping breaker by disconnecting the ground (EGC). It stopped the tripping, but what they didn't know is it was caused when someone crushed a hot in a clamp which made the box cases all live. I was looking at different circuit completely. This was in a bathroom next to a shower, and it's a miracle no one was hurt.

Be careful, in some wiring configurations the white wire may not be a neutral. So it’s not always a good idea to blindly connect all the white wires together unless you know what’s going on with the circuitry! Thanks for posting!

The clockwise wire tip was huge for me. Thanks!

Thanks for helping me not burn my house down.

Clear and concise explanation in all you vids, including this one. You're a wealth of info brother. Thank you.

Definitely worth the time for anyone that has ever even thought about wiring to watch. Will be using this as a training video for my coworkers.

THANKS! you gave me the answer i was looking for in the first 60 seconds and ... IT WORKED PERFECT!

Thank you so much for the break down on installing and light switch.

Great video. My 2 cents on backstabbing: Last week the outlet behind my refrigerator was throwing sparks and beginning to catch fire. Thankfully, I was home at the time and cut the power and put out the fire. When removing the outlet, I discovered it was wired with backstabbing, and the wire just fell out of the bottom holes (where the fire started) when I pulled the outlet away from the box. Clearly there was arcing inside the outlet due to the connection failure. Backstabbing should not be allowed in code, and should be banned. I've since found that the previous owner, who remodelled the kitchen had backstabbed all the outlets. All have been replaced.

Great video, my husband and I just installed a switch I wasn't aware of this.now I know I will go back and check our install to see if we did it correctly thanks for sharing. Very informative and detailed

The last part was good information for me. I replaced all the switches in my house with Eaton Commercial Grade switches. All but the first two I installed were using the clamps. Watching this video reminded me to change the first two switches I did to use the clamps.

Great explanations on proper wiring techniques! Well done!

I have learned this when I was a child. Seems like common sense. Understanding current flow / conductivity is pretty important for anyone doing electrical work.

Hey, thanks for this video - learned a lot, and I think you solved a problem I'm having with lights that just started flickering: will replace the switch and see if it stops!

Great info and I love how detailed you get when explaining things. I was messing around as a DIY until i got hit and forced me to learn more about electricity.

I discovered your page roughly a week ago upon trying to understand how to do basic household electrical work. I want to say I’ve truly learned something from every single video I’ve watched of yours so far. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I love that you provide the what, how, and why behind every lesson. Very helpful in helping me successfully and safely tackle household projects.

Thanks for the screwdriver information. Thumbs up 👍

Helpful video! Tip #7 and the bonus tip were really interesting, and I haven't seen those in other similar videos I've watched.

Hands down, this is the BEST light switch wiring tutorial I've seen!!!

I have replaced a couple of backstab connections made by our builder's electrician that had failed over time. One of them almost caught fire from arcing. It smoked and melted half the switch. As a rule i do not use them at all, and would advise everyone not to use them either. Don't care if it is approved by code or not. In my experience it has proved to be outright dangerous.

Really appreciate the way you share info! Thanks man!

I have changed most of the switches and outlets with your help, thanks a lots. God bless.

Ty, I'm changing all the switches and receptacles in an old mobile home, and its been crazy. The wiring in this thing is chaos, so my mind has been all over the place. This video helped me focus. Again, Thank you.

People need to be careful when buying the ECX or combo bits. There are two sizes #1 and #2 (KLEIN uses C1 and C2). #1 (C1) is smaller and used more for residential work and #2 (C2) is larger and used more for commercial work on items like EMT connectors and boxes. So, watch out for which one you are trying to buy. For switches and outlets, you need #1 (C1)

Nice ! Really like the commercial grade and tool suggestions. I might suggest you talk about tools for stripping wire without damaging the conductor?

Very informative. I'm an electrical engineer that has been doing DIY house wiring for 40 years, but never professionally. But being an engineer doesn't automatically qualify you to do house wiring. You have to follow the code and best practices as well. The prior video on pre-twisting wire before applying wire nuts was something I'd not seen. I put them in the wire nut untwisted, assure I'm using the correct size wire nut for the volume of wire I'm connecting, tighten partially, check each wire for security, then perform the rest of the twist continuing to the insulated portion by cranking the wire nut with pliers. I think doing it the way the video recommends is easier and the quality of connection is verifiable. Also, I NEVER do the double decker connection on a screw terminal, but have repaired a number of them other clowns have done. In fact, I just repaired one yesterday in this older house I bought. They had actually used black lamp cord to make the jumpers and double decked that (egad)! Another cardinal sin is using the back stabbing to connect the jumper for to the next device in the box. The device then becomes part of the branch circuit and we don't want that. I've seen this type of connection fail over time, go intermittent and even arc as they corrode. I've seen certified master electricians do this since the push in terminals are "legal", in fact, a new build house I bought had some connections made that way. But using backstab is very fast and these guys are trying to make money ... I'm not since I'm working for myself. Once you get a flaky backstabbed connection that's part of (in series with) your branch circuit, you have no idea where it is. You have to take out every device in the branch circuit (usually one at a time) and wiggle it with the power on till you find the fault. Don't touch the black terminal and anything white or grounded simultaneously when you do this! Backstabbed connections? Not in my house! When jumpers are needed between switches or receptacles, I like to cut a jumper long enough to connect all of the devices that need it in a box, and in as many cases as possible, strip about 3/4" in the middle of the jumper and wrap the bared copper around the terminal. This makes a minimum resistance, durable, busbar-like connection that is even more reliable than a wire nut, can NEVER go intermittent, takes up less room in the box, and is easy and fast to implement. I've even done this in branch circuits between boxes by sequentially wiring them. I strip about 1' of the jacket off the Romex where needed, strip 3/4" of insulation off the individual black and white conductors in the middle of the 1' unjacketed length, bend over at the strip to form a bare copper loop, insert into the box, then wrap the stripped copper loops around the device connection screws. The ground wire of course gets bonded to each box (if metallic) without cutting the conductor, or for a non-metallic box it's connected to the device's ground terminal. Be sure to secure the jacketed Romex using the retaining system in your box ... don't clamp down on unjacketed wire! Speaking of jumpers, I do like back wiring ... not back stabbing, but true back wiring. CAUTION ... when back wiring, the length of the strip must be precise. I'm sort of comfortable using back wiring to connect a jumper wire for another device in the box, sort of a legal double decker, but still prefer the wrapped around the screw jumper made with wire stripped in the middle and bent into a loop. Then you are not relying on the device to make part of the branch circuit ... you are doing it with wire instead. Anyway, excellent videos. Keep up the good work.

Love all your videos. You have that knack for simplifying everything.

Thanks for the video especially the upgraded switch. Electric repairs scare me since I feel like a mistake could cause a fire, so unless it’s an even swap out, I don’t attempt it. Even when I do attempt it, I’m so overly cautious that I turn off practically every circuit breaker in the house, triple check with a meter, take pictures with my phone to make sure I’m hooking things back up properly and then feeling like fool when it takes 30 seconds to swap a switch out (including putting the plate back on with the screws perfectly aligned) 😂

I have wired alot of switches and I always have to think about where the neutral goes, I then realize it bypasses the switch. Your explanation finally made sense thank you

Very helpful usage info, enjoyed watching, thanks.

Never comment, but this was so helpful, clear, and to the point that I have to comment on this one. Really helpful. Thank you. I'm to the point that I don't do any electrical projects without looking for and watching your "mistakes" video.

As an electrician I've replaced numerous failed switches and receptacles which were installed with the wires being "back stabbed". The internal surface contact on a back stabbed switch/receptacle is minimal compared to using a side wired application.

My brother who is a retired electrician who worked for a large college, always told me to wrap the screws with electrical tape. Lowers risk of contact an helps keep wiring secure.

Delivery of info is very good - better than many University profs I have witnessed.

Thanks 🙏🏻 you ALWAYS provide much appreciated knowledge.

I can't figure out how YT creators always post exactly what I need to see on any given day. Doing a light switch tomorrow.

On the commercial grade switch, it’s still best to make a j hook when using solid wire. The hold down plates are actually to accommodate stranded wire which is commonly used in commercial buildings.

This was an outstanding learning video for a newbie like myself. Even though this posted over a year ago, you might want a video on wiring for old houses.

Great video. Thank you for sharing. I've done some low voltage home electronics projects and want to change a light switch to a dimmer in a room. This will help me not to make some mistakes,

Those back stab connections where introduced to deal with aluminium wires. Those wires are softer, easier to flatten and expand more when heated than copper. As the contact is made using spring, the aluminium wire expanding and contracting when the temperature change don't cause the wire to flatten and degrade the connection.

It would not be uncommon to find a white wire connected to the switch and going to the light or whatever is being switched. In this case the white wire is not a neutral wire, but it's being used as a hot wire (switch leg) in a case where /2 wire cables are used instead of/3, and the power comes into the switched device first, aka a switch loop. The white wire should be marked on both ends with black electrical tape or hs tubing to indicate hot, but it's not always done. This is not allowed anymore in most cases, since a neutral wire must reside in the switch box. A 14/3 or 12/3 between the switch and the light or whatever would be used in a switch loop scenario.

Extremely helpful video! I just want to put a switch in for a light in our sheep pen, instead of going in the shed every time to plug/unplug it. Thanks for sharing this!

My exact problem at 3:07. Can't believe they did that. lots of arching suddenly one day. Thanks for this!

People may not like back-stabbies, but as you said, they are legal. Making a proper J-hook is a skill and, like any skill, it takes some practice and a DIYer can get rusty between projects. I will submit that a proper back-stab is safer than any improper J-hook. (I side-step the problem and only use commercial grade outlets and switches.)

Very helpful and presented in a simple way way that almost anyone can understand! Thank you.

As a rule of thumb when I did commercial work, we made the top of the switch line side, and the bottom of the switch the load side. This helped us when we were trouble shooting.

I've never stumbled onto the horrible case with two wires around one screw, however I've seen several installations like this where the backstab is used for the second wire. I guess this is not against code, but I sure do prefer using a pigtail. Never use the back stab :) Oh, and the ultimate horror: A receptacle where all 4 screws and all 4 backstabs were used - 8 wires plus ground connected to one lone duplex receptacle. Is this even within code?!?

One little thing....there most definitely are times when you connect the neutral line to a switch. Obviously, I am referring to those times when the power source is coming into the fixture and not into the switch. You may have skipped that to avoid confusion.

I love your content! Your explanations, and camerawork are so, so good. Thank you for providing such an informative and well made KZfaq channel! I will be recommending you to anyone looking for a reliable, informative, and well produced channel.

My mother broke her basement stairs light switch by hitting it with a basket full of clothes. I saw your tutorial, bought the switch you recommended and followed your directions but the light didn't turn on. But I looked up at the light and I said to myself " I'll change the bulb and see if that helps." It did,and now my mother can use the steps safely. Thanks.

One thing you could have added. If you ever remove a back stab, NEVER use that switch back stab again. Removing wire damages the internal device that holds wire in.

Pretty sure I made all these mistakes at one point

So happy I have found Your channel. As I have been watching I have discovered that its a wonder that I haven't burned my house down with some of the DIY work I have done on it. Thanks, awesome content!!

Excellent! Extremely informative. Thank you. Dom

Common mistakes I've made.

Great video. I'm in process of upgrading all of my switches to smart switches and some dumb "paddle" switches. Your video lets me know if I'm doing anything wrong 👍

I've seen all of the issues you have all the issues you have pointed out, thanks for making this video.

Doing my first dimmer switch install in my bathroom switch. This was helpful.

Excellent presentation!! Please continue to provide your experience to people like me that try to do this type of work to save some money. Again keep up the good work. God bless!

As always a quality top notch video with tons of information. Thank you....

Thanks! Huge help to me in understanding how they work.

Late to this video but I just ordered that Milwaukee 13 in 1 ECX Screwdriver. Seeing that ECX bit in action sold me. Now I'll take apart all the outlets in my house just so I can use this to tighten the connections! Yes... I need help. Just ask my wife.

Thanks HtH, picked up on two mistakes in your inside box. Great videos. Lots of good info for us nonprofessional types! Appreciate it!

Thanks , I love it when I can solves my project watching your videos.

Thank you-very detailed and perfect for the amateur on a budget

Wow thank you. Def a great video and helpful. ? I have a ceiling fan and have a 12/2 cable in wall (from and to fan) but want to separate light and fan rather than have pully chain. Do I need 12/3 or 14/3 and do I need to rewire from light switch to fan only or shall I replace it all the way to the power source/ box in garage?

Very simple but extremely useful safety tips. Thanks bro!

I appreciate the helpful tips. I am a DIYer and basic and advanced electrical knowledge to keep things safe is always a great idea

Thanks for your teaching! I'm was just in the middle of putting a single pole switch and couldn't understand where the neutral wire went. Lol. Now have understanding.

Yes, this was very helpful. I just had an issue with my bathroom switches. I didn't know there was a difference between switches. I had what I thought was a shorting problem with my light switch. It turned out to be problem with how they added the pigtail for a second switch in the switch box. So, I went back and fixed the pigtail problem. Thanks