Need help mounting wall switch...

[aleehatami]

Just got the z-wave wall switches in today. This is the very first time I am dealing with this and dont want to shock myself and dont want to hire an electrician

I unscrwed my original wallplate and found that there is a red wire, and black wire that comes from within the wall and it is held in place on the switch with a screw for each of them. There is also a ground wire attached to the switch with a screw.

On the z-wave switch there is a black and blue wire with a copper ground wire.... Do I twist these on to the black and red wires coming in from the wall? Deeper inside the wall there are more wires with a big red cap on it... I don tknow what this is

Can anybody give me any hints.

****EDIT***

nevermind they are not connected to the screw terminals the original is just like the z-wave switch now I guess I have to dig everything out and find out where they are going

[Rupp]

Red wires normally indicate a 3-way light. Is the switch your replacing a 3-way?

[aleehatami]

No it is not a 3-way. Coming out from the wall are black and white wires.... but on the original wall switch there is a red and black wire coming out of it...


here are 2 pictures to help explain things.

[jasv]

The black wire is probably line

Do you have "glow stick"? If you did you would be able to tell which wire was the power (line) and which one is the load (Light). Most likely your red wire is the load and you should wire as follows

Green or ground to the bare copper
Black on Zwave to Black from the wall
Blue on zwave to red from old wall switch.

I take it that you bought the zwave that doesn't require a neutral.

Caution. You should always turn off the power at the circuit breaker before you start. The "glow stick" can tell you if power is still on or not. They can be bought cheap at home depot.

[aleehatami]

Ok james thanks. Yea I found that out the hard way got a little jolt when I touched the black wire and the metal bracket on the wall switch

[aleehatami]

Thanks guys I got it to work! The red actually ended up being the hot wire james Thanks for giving me an idea on where to start.

Now I just have to wait for the stupid master controller because I was an idiot and didn't order it

[jasv]

It will be worth it.

I think you will be happy with Zwave. I know that for me after trying my best with X10 it has been excellent. And, of course, Homeseer is the key to everything.

[AccessX10]

While not Zwave, Smarthome has a great animated tutorial on installing switches for the beginner (SwitchLinc).

http://www.smarthome.com/Flash/238xinstall.swf

[Barry Gordon]

Being an ex electrician, I am a little concerned by your statement that the red is the hot lead. If that were the case then all of the black wires that are tied together are going to things that the switch controls, since turning the switch on will connect the red (the one you said is the hot wire) to the black bundle.

In normal practice black is always Hot, white is always neutral, and green or bare is bonding ground. A red or a blue or anything else is NORMALLY a switched Hot line. That is, it becomes hot (connected to the black when the switch is turned on). In your case that is the red wire. This red wire should go to the fixture or device controlled by the switch.

I am not familiar with the color coding on the z wave switch but it sounds like the black wire should be tied to the hot leg (the black bundle, via the wire coming from the bundle that went to the old switc). The blue wire from the z-wave switch should got to the red wire that was on the original switch. The bare bonding ground (from your picture) should go to the grounding screw on the z wave switch.

The above might be redundant since you indicated that you solved the problem and it is working.

I always have the following little tool around that is a hold over from my electrician days: Take two rubber pig tail sockets bought at a place like Home deput, Ace haardware Loews etc. Screw in two little appliance bulbs that run about 5-10 watts (large base, small bulb). Wire the sockets in series (the black of one to the white of the other). Tape the sockets together leaving one black wire and one white wire exposed.

Use is as follows: When looking for voltage (be careful the circuit is hot) touch one of the pigtail wires to what you think is hot and the other to neutral or ground. If the lights illuminate at about half brilliance then you are across a 120 volt line and and the pig tail wire that is not touching ground is on a live wire. BE CAREFUL. If you touch the two pigtail wires across a source of 240 Volts then both lights will be at full brilliance. If when probing across two wires neither of which is ground or neutral the "no light" condition can mean one of 4 things:

Neither wire has any voltage on it
Both wires have the same voltage on them (That is why the ground test should be done first)
One of them has voltage and the other one is dead or does not have a path to ground (and vice versa)

Once again be careful if you play with hot circuits. Little jolts across two fingers or a hand and a finger of that hand will sting but probably won't kill you, HOWEVER IF IT IS A HUMID DAY AND YOU ARE SWEATING THEN THE PATH FOR THE CURRENT IS FROM YOUR FINGER THROUGH YOUR ENTIRE BODY INCLUDING YOUR HEART AND IT WILL PROBABLY KILL YOU!!!!

The preceeding is for information only. I generally use the pigtails in a circuit breaker panel.

[aleehatami]

Acessx10 thanks for the site

Barry yes you are correct the setup you mentioned is the one I used and the one that works. Thats a great idea I think I will try it out as I still have 3-way switches, ceiling fan switches, and much more to do, so who knows what I will run into.

As for your warning about the jolt... I jolted myself twice and it gave me a good little shock but I am glad you said something about the sweating even though it seems like common sense... I just wasn't thinking about it! Thanks for the info as it is 100 degrees right now in Southern California!

[Barry Gordon]

And I thought that Central FL was hot at 95+. Then again, we have that rain forest Humidity. I really should complain since I am on an Island in the middle of the intercoastal waterway so there is generally a nice Breeze.

[aleehatami]

Yes it is the humudity that kills you... I've been to florida once and if its 84 degrees there it really feels like 104 The humidity down here is only at about 40% which is actually above average for So Cal

But your right a nice breeze is all you need to make the weather all worth while