screws on wall switch are hot

[aggiedad]

:hmmmm2: hi hope I.m in the right place.
I have a problem with the screws being hot on the wall switches with switch on or off. I shut down all circuits except one this circuit goe direct from 200 amp breaker box to light then to wall switch. the white wire is to the white on light the black goes to lower part of switch white from upper part of switch to black on light.Like I said I turned off all other circuites except this one .Alos there is no splices on this circuit and ive tried other switches any idea thanks for your help

[joed]

Hot as in temperature? or hot as in electrified?
If they are electrified then I suspect you have an open ground and possibly a ground connected to a hot or neutral.

[aggiedad]

Hot as in temperature? or hot as in electrified?
If they are electrified then I suspect you have an open ground and possibly a ground connected to a hot or neutral.

hot as in electrial .far as open ground I have all the other breaker turned off also this is a new breaker box replaced the other cause of this problem do you think it could be the transformer?

[Mr T]

When you say lower screw, what color is it?

In a normal switch there are 2 brass colored screws on teh side, and a 3rd screw, sometimes green towards to top or bottom of the swtich.. what is hooked to this screw?
Keep the circuit off until this problem is resolved, you could have a serious safety issue here(and not just at this switch)

also as a FYI, a better place to post this would have been the "electrical existing home" board, but most of us read all the rooms anyways...:tee:

[joed]

I totally read this a different way. I thought he meant the cover mounting screws not the actual screw where the wire terminates. The wire termination screws will measure hot on at least one of them. If you are using a digital meter the other one could also measure hot do to false reading or phantom voltage.
Does the switch actually turn the fixture on or off? Is there another problem like the breaker trips when you flip the switch?

[Mr T]

Well hopefully he clarifies this for us.

[scuba_dave]

:hmmmm2: hi hope I.m in the right place.
I have a problem with the screws being hot on the wall switches with switch on or off. I shut down all circuits except one this circuit goe direct from 200 amp breaker box to light then to wall switch. the white wire is to the white on light the black goes to lower part of switch white from upper part of switch to black on light.Like I said I turned off all other circuites except this one .Alos there is no splices on this circuit and ive tried other switches any idea thanks for your help

From what you are saying, you shut down all the circuits except one. The circuit feeding this light? Yes?

Like I said I turned off all other circuites except this one.

You say power goes to light, then switch - this means the power goes from the light via the black wire, to your switch, then back to your light via the white wire. As long as the circuit has power, then you will have power at the switch

This is normal....so ...is there any power when you shut THIS circuit off?
When you shut the light circuit off, then you should not have any power at the switch (unless phantom power as stated)

The white should actually be re-marked black - as it is a current carrying wire as used in this case

Do you have power at both screws, or only one? ??
Is power at the light switch screws, or the screws holding the face plate on??

[aggiedad]

Form what you are saying, you shut down all the circuits except one. The circuit feeding this light? Yes?



You say power goes to light, then switch - this means the power goes from the light via the black wire, to your switch, then back to your light via the white wire. As long as the circuit has power, then you will have power at the switch

This is normal....so ...is there any power when you shut THIS circuit off?
When you shut the light circuit off, then you should not have any power at the switch (unless phantom power as stated)

The white should actually be re-marked black - as it is a current carrying wire as used in this case

Do you have power at both screws, or only one? ??
Is power at the light switch screws, or the screws holding the face plate on??yes the white is marked black and the screws that are hot are mounting screws both are hot with the switch on or off sorry for the confusion

[joed]

How are you determining that they are hot?
If they actually are hot then you have a ground problem. The mounting screws are connected directly to the ground. If there is a ground connected then it must be open somewhere. That break could be anywhere on the circuit.

[aggiedad]

How are you determining that they are hot?
If they actually are hot then you have a ground problem. The mounting screws are connected directly to the ground. If there is a ground connected then it must be open somewhere. That break could be anywhere on the circuit.
testing with a fluke meter also first noticed when I was putting on wall plate cover helper touched the tip of screw driver. there are no breaks from light to the breaker box white wire goes to ground in breaker box copper wire does also black to 20 amp breaker all other circuits are off. The breaker box is square d I noticed the ground for the furnance hooks up fairly close to one of the 110 legs do you think this could be a problem also if so the ground won't fit in the reg. ground slots hope this makes since. thanks for your time could this be a bad transformer?

[Mr T]

Sent to me via PM

hope its okey to do this.
I.ll start at the begining, While wiring a new light switch I noticed that the screws which holds the cover were hot (electrical) I then went to the breaker box and noticed that one leg 110 coming in from meter was slightly burnned. At this point I pulled meter , inspected 200 amp breaker box (sd ) and found the 200 amp breaker was cracked. Replaced it with A new breaker box and all new breakers. When I hooked everthing up I had the same problem The only other thing I noticed was the ground for the furnance hooks up next to the incoming ground which seems close to one of the main 110's hope this helps

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I cant help with the panel damage, not my specialty (I'm just a hobbiest). Others in here shoudl be able to respond to that.

Turn power off and pull the switch out of the box. Turn power on and check the metal face of the swtich again. Is it still hot? I asked this earlier and got no response. There are 3 terminal screws on a switch, 2 on the side and a 3rd thats towards the top or bottom
that may have a green screw. What is attached to this screw?

Please post back with answers to these and we can further help.
Thanks

[aggiedad]

Sent to me via PM

hope its okey to do this.
I.ll start at the begining, While wiring a new light switch I noticed that the screws which holds the cover were hot (electrical) I then went to the breaker box and noticed that one leg 110 coming in from meter was slightly burnned. At this point I pulled meter , inspected 200 amp breaker box (sd ) and found the 200 amp breaker was cracked. Replaced it with A new breaker box and all new breakers. When I hooked everthing up I had the same problem The only other thing I noticed was the ground for the furnance hooks up next to the incoming ground which seems close to one of the main 110's hope this helps

------------------------
I cant help with the panel damage, not my specialty (I'm just a hobbiest). Others in here shoudl be able to respond to that.

Turn power off and pull the switch out of the box. Turn power on and check the metal face of the swtich again. Is it still hot? I asked this earlier and got no response. There are 3 terminal screws on a switch, 2 on the side and a 3rd thats towards the top or bottom
that may have a green screw. What is attached to this screw?

Please post back with answers to these and we can further help.
Thanks
yes its still hot (elecrical) no wire to green ground wiring only has two coming from light

[Mr T]

Your box is hot then.

Check for a ground in the box.
Pull the wire clamps and check for a pinched /cut wire.. replace the wire if it is, dont tape.

[suemarkp]

This is a symptom of multiple failures. First thing I'd do is disconnect the switch. Is the ?metal? box still electrically hot? If so, you have a pinched wire and a ground that is not working (assuming a metal box). If not, you may have a bad switch.

If you have a grounding wire on the switch green screw and one on the metal device box, and both of those are connected to the branch circuit bare gorunding wire, then screws should never become electrically hot. If they do, then that ground wire is either broken or worse broken and electrified.

I'd check your main bonding jumper at your service panel. Is there a green screw connecting the service neutral (white) wire to the panel chassis and the bus where all the bare grounds go? If that checks out, follow this branch circuit from panel to the switch and check all the grounding connections and make wure they are done well and not broken or just twisted without a wire nut.

If the ground and a hot wire were close in the main panel, you'd know it if they were touching as your panel would turn into an arc welder (if the main bonding jumper is installed correctly).

[joed]

How are you measuring it to be hot? What two points are measuring between?
If you have no ground in the box then I suspect the cable clamp into the box is too tight and has cut into the hot wire.

[dahillner]

Has anyone considered the switch may be bad? He said the metal face of the switch was still hot after pulling it from the box (with no wire to the green grounding terminal). If the switch is damaged and is somehow leaking current from the hot terminal to the metal mounting frame, this would explain the problem.

[JeffeVerde]

yes its still hot (elecrical) no wire to green ground wiring only has two coming from light

Is this NM or conduit and single conductors? I'm guessing the later, from you comment above (no ground, just two wires from the light). If that's the case, you've got two issues - (1) you're using the conduit for a ground, but it's not actually grounded, and (2) some where you've got a hot short to your conduit run.

I'd start at the light, disconnect the switch legs and temporarily cap off the hot leads into the light jb. If the box at the switch jb is no longer hot, you've got a damaged wire between the light and the switch. If it is still hot, disconnect the hot lead to the light at the panel. If that fixes the hot, the problem is in the wiring between the light and the panel. If the conduit run is still hot, it sounds like the chassis of the panel is hot -- but I'd bet it turns out to be a damaged wire in the run to the switch or the light.

Find and replace the shorted wire, and then make sure the conduit has good mechanical bonding through it's entire length. Better yet, run a ground conductor instead of relying on the conduit. If you do stick with the conduit ground path, run a long jumper from the panel to the end of the conduit run and verify that you've got continuity to ground over the entire length of the conduit run.