My new-to-me 1984 house seems to have very few switched sockets for use with free-standing lamps (as an alternative to the recessed fittings that the previous owner had a passion for). All of them appear to be on permanently, top and bottom socket.
However.... today I was switching out a dimmer and a couple of sockets, and noticed that there are two hot wires at each socket in the room in question. The copper tabs on the sockets were in tact. So this is how my reasoning went....
1 the second wire indicates that the wiring is probably already in place to support a switched approach 2 the fact that the tabs were not broken and both hot wires were attached to the socket, must mean that the other end of the switched wire is not connected (otherwise the light would be on permanently) 3 I then looked in the light switch box and found several black wires joined in a nut to permanent live. I concluded therefore that they were set up like that because the original owners did not want them switched, but if I wanted them thus, I could disconnect from this nut and reconnect to the switched wire.So experts, how am I doing so far?
In fact, the room I was looking at does not really need any switched sockets, but I was interested because the same logic might apply to the problem rooms.
Does this make any sense? And for a house of this era, would it be likely that the wires to allow switched operation should be in place to allow me like me to use them with a few adjustments to connections either end?
Many TIA.
Mat