OT: Residential electrical help Options

[flipb]

I replaced a chandelier in my house today and it didn't go quite as smoothly as planned. Help me figure out how badly I screwed things up.

Our house was built in 1959, but the wiring to this fixture appeared newer. There was a chandelier on a dimmer switch in our dining room, and I bought a new one to replace it. The new one weighs less than the old one, so I wasn't worried about the fixture box holding it - and the mechanical side of the install went fine.

I was expecting it to be simple enough... to find Hot, Neutral, and Ground inside the fixture box. Discovering that it was more complicated, I tried to wire the new one the same way I found the old one wired.

Inside the box were FOUR sets of hot & neutral. The way I found it wired to the old chandelier (and the way it's now wired to the new chandelier) is as follows:

1. 3 Black wires and one White wire were connected with a wire nut.
2. A Black, a white, and a lead to the chandlier are connected in a wire nut
3. A white, another white, and the other lead to the chandelier are connected via a third wire nut

I've also tied the grounds together, and I'm fairly sure that's done properly.

Once I had it wired, the first time I tried to turn on the light, it blew the circuit breaker. I decided that I must've accidentally reversed the white wires from B and C, above, so I switched them and tried again.

Now the fixture works, but the dimmer doesn't dim... as soon as it comes on, the bulbs are at full brightness. The other strange thing is that until I installed a light bulb in the chandelier, nothing else on that circuit was getting power. I can tell because the Oven is on the same circuit and the display was blank until I put the first bulb into the chandelier.

Did I blow the dimmer switch when I had it miswired? Or do I have it miswired now, preventing the dimmer from working? And why are there four sets of wires coming through this box?

Need help from any electrical geniuses to determine whether I can repair this myself or if it's time to call an electrician.

Thanks.

Flip

[JStroud]

Ill try and keep this simple, your power is coming from the panel to the light fixture box, (the hot wire in the box). You have a black,white, and maybe ground going to the dimmer switch, you need to identify these wires in the ceiling box. All other wires in the ceiling box feed other lights,switches or whatever.

Once you've identified all wires This is how it should be wired: The black power wire, the white wire to the dimmer (thats right the white wire) and the other black wire going to feed other stuff should be connected together, This connects the power to the other loads and puts power to the dimmer.

then the white wire from the hot circuit, the white wires from the wires feeding the other stuff, and the white wire going to the light fixture should be connected together, this connects the neutral side of the circuit.

then the black wire from the dimmer and the black wire from the light fixtureshould be connected together, this brings the power to the light from the dimmer when it it activated.

then all grounds should be connected.

All should work properly once connected in this manner, the only problem you may have is if they originally switched the neutral and not the hot wire through the dimmer, if the dimmer is not working properly, switch the location of the black and white wires on the dimmer then it will be correct. If it still doesn't work, replace the dimmer switch.

This isn't my opinion, I'm a general contractor and do this for a living, this will work.
If you still have problems call me (916) 834-6574, don't hire an electritian, you can do this. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/aktion035.gif)

Jeff