Broken light switch

Sep 03, 2008 12 Replies

I recently moved into an older house. There is a light switch by the front door that doesn't seem to do anything. All the light fixtures inside and outside have good bulbs in them and switch on and off.



Why would there be a switch by the door with no light?



TIA



Anna


I recently moved into an older house. There is a light switch by the front door that doesn't seem to do anything. All the light fixtures inside and outside have good bulbs in them and switch on and off.

Why would there be a switch by the door with no light?

TIA

Anna

It may switch one half of a duplex outlet so that when you come in you can turn on a lamp plugged into that outlet.

Control an outlet in the room (maybe just the upper socket) to plug in a light?

It may work an outlet into which it is intended that a lamp be plugged.

Plug a lit lamp in all the wall plugs to see if controls a lamp. Check poth plug holes,it may be a 'switched outlet. Jerry

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Is there a ceiling fixture in that room? I have one rental that has a false ceiling in it and when they re-did it, they didn't bother to put the ceiling fixture back in the room. HA HA, they just left the dam thing laying on top the new sheetrock... Found it when i rewired.

s

As others mentioned there could be a wall receptacle controlled by that switch. Since it is an older house anything is possible. I've opened up switches in homes only to find that no wires are connected to them. There may have been some additional lighting outside that was eliminated at some point. Like someone else mentioned there may have been a ceiling fixture that was eliminated and the ceiling electrical box was covered over. When you do some remodeling you may find out what it is for.

As others have said, it could be for a switched outlet or half outlet. It could also be for a switched outdoor outlet, possibly used for Christmas lights, or possibly for a future post lamp that never materialized

Look around OUTSIDE near the eaves of the home. Our place (and our last one also) had two outdoor duplex outlets up near the gutters that were intended to be used to plug in Xmas lights. Switch(es) were inside

Good question. There was one of those in this house when we bought it many years ago. It's on the inside by the slider that goes to the patio, but I've never found out what it's for. :-)

Cheri

My inoperative switch actually led to a transformer for low voltage outdoor lights. Lights had been long removed, huge transformer was still in the attic.

Might switch a wall outlet on the other side of the room. I've seen that.

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