How To Wire A Dimmer Switch

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Hi there, I'm Chris from Aspect Maintenance, a large electrical company based in the centre of London. Today we're going to talk about how to change over a dimmer switch within a kitchen. First here, we obviously checked that the power's off.

We got the cables exposed from the wall. Got the live, and we got the switch live clearly marked here with a piece of tape. Then get the dimmer switch with the three points on it.

On this point we've only got, we've got the C, which is the common, and the L one, which is the light switched. This being the switch wire and this being the common. Common being the one that's permanently live all the time.

So now that we established that the common and that the L one, and actually the common cable, fit into the common position. Then we tighten it up. Not too tight, there we go, that's fine.

We've got the switched cable. It goes into the L one. If you get these mixed around, what you'll find is that your switch turns on and turns off the opposite way, which it normally would.

So we've got those. We push those cables gently back in the box again. Bring the dimmer switch down.

Straightening it up. That should just tuck in there nicely. And there we go.

Then take two screws, which should go in and meet the box. And the last screw goes in. Now the power's back on, we can test the dimmer.

And there we go, dimmer works. And that's how you do a dimmer switch.