Elements of home electrical wiring sooner or later have to be replaced or repaired. To do this efficiently, and most importantly, safely for your life, you need to know how the main points of the work are performed: how to remove a switch, an outlet from the wall, how to disassemble them and find out which part in their device does not work correctly or even came out of building.
Content
- Trouble diagnosis
- Dismantling the switch
- Repair features
Trouble diagnosis
The light went out in the house, garage or shed? Before taking on a screwdriver, you need to find out the possible cause. There may be several of them, it will not be difficult to identify them:
Burnout incandescent lamp. Sometimes in such cases, when turned on, it can flare up, blink or burst, and only then go out. If this happens, then there should be no doubt - the lamp needs to be replaced. Turn the switch to the “off” position, carefully unscrew and replace the burned out lamp with a working one. If the lamp simply does not turn on, then in order to diagnose it, you will also have to unscrew it from the cartridge, see if the tungsten coil is intact, or just try to insert a new lamp in its place. If, after the performed manipulations, the light turned on, then everything is in order and nothing else needs to be done.- If replacing the lamp did not work, and the light still does not want to turn on, the cartridge may have failed. To test this assumption, you need to unscrew it and put another in its place.
- In the absence of a response, there are no options left - the switch itself is faulty.
If you have spare electrical accessories and a few screwdrivers at home, then you can immediately begin to carry out repair work. The difficulty lies only in correctly locating the attachment points and not damaging the appearance of the switch when removing it from the wall.
The fact is that the reason for the inactivity of the on / off mechanism can be easily eliminated by household methods, and replacement is not required, then it will be possible to put the repaired switch back on a place. And given the fact that manufacturers now pay great attention to the design of their products, then all screws, clamps and other fasteners are usually hidden under the frame. Therefore, when dismantling, without knowing the detailed arrangement of the fittings, you can easily damage the keys or the frame, and this will significantly worsen the external data.
Dismantling the switch
When performing any work with electrical wiring, first of all, you need to turn off the electricity on the panel, de-energizing the place of repair. And you should also stock up on a special indicator screwdriver, with which you can check if everything is disabled.
The dismantling procedure will be as follows:
-
First, the keys of the mechanism are removed, without this action it is almost impossible to see the internal structure. Regardless of how many of them are in a particular model, they are attached in about the same way. To remove them, pry them slightly with a screwdriver, holding them with your fingers on both sides. Usually, there are no particular difficulties in this.
- Next, you need to remove the frame. In various types of electrical accessories, it can be fastened in different ways - with two bolts located from the inside of the product, or with special grooves. In the second case, they can be easily unclenched with a screwdriver, in the first case, simply unscrew. Most often, flat screws are used in the assembly of the switch, but sometimes you can also find Phillips - they will need an appropriate screwdriver.
After that, you can proceed to dismantle the mechanism itself and unscrew the bolts that secure the wiring.
Repair features
When all the preparatory work is completed, you need to disassemble the light switch and carefully examine it. If the contacts are oxidized, they must be cleaned. Oxidation can also interfere with the passage of electric current, so if there is severe contamination of the contacts, then most likely this is why the mechanism did not work. After cleaning, you need to connect all the wires, mount the device back into the hole in the wall and secure the frame and keys in place. To test its operation, electricity is supplied.
If the contacts of the switch are melted, then this indicates that a short circuit has occurred, as a result of which the mechanism overheated and deformed. In this case, only replacement will help., such a switch can no longer be repaired. In order for the new device to fit, you need to take the old one with you to the store, then there will be no problems with the choice of accessories.
In addition, loosening of the wire contacts at the terminals is possible. If outwardly everything looks fine, you should try to unscrew the wiring from the attachment points and screw it on again, tightening the screws tightly. If the check revealed that this is not the case, then it is worth checking the quality of the wiring with a special device - a multimeter.
