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#96122 11/04/05 11:54 PM
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,507
G
Member
Does anyone see a problem with using a door jamb switch for turning closet lights on and off? I really cring when I see that type of installation. First of all they are quite often installed in team with the carpenter and I never see if there is a connector on an ever so small box. I know they are Listed for that use but they sure are not complying with the fill requirements of Article 314. I feel much better now having vented.


George Little
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#96123 11/05/05 12:16 AM
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 717
M
Member
George, I have used them before but I sent 12 volts thru the doorjamb switch and used it for the coil on a relay to turn the lights on and off. That way the wire fill is not such an issue. Found me a better way, a sensor mounted up on the closet ceiling away from the doors does work well where there is double french doors and the owner does not want the switch on the outside of the closet.

#96124 11/05/05 06:51 AM
Joined: Jan 2003
Posts: 4,391
I
Moderator
George I do not believe the fill requirements can be applied this door jamb

Have you ever had to wire a "Micro Switch" . eek

IMO, you are misplacing the blame.

The problem is not the door jam switch, the problem is clearly with the installers that are less than professional.

That said I would try to get the customer to use a motion sensor as Mike has done.

JMO, Bob


Bob Badger
Construction & Maintenance Electrician
Massachusetts
#96125 11/05/05 06:12 PM
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 2,876
E
e57 Offline
Member
I like the motion idea....

From the recent "closet light" thread... ( I posted this...)
Quote
I was out with my wife, and mother-in-law, and a few of her friends for dinner a few months ago.... "Oh so Mark what do you do?" I'm an Electrician, Yeah, yeah, yeah.... Older woman at the end of the table says, "You don't put lights in closets do you?" I say, "Well only of a certain type and certain distance, blah, blah, blah... She then goes on to tell me that she had a light controled by a door switch in a linen closet. And that one night her son came home with a guest after a night of drinking, and pulled out some blankets for the guest. Some pillows fell down on the light, and that her son, not thinking left the door partially open, or so they think. (Second opinion of the Fire Dept. confirmed.) She wakes up later to smoke detectors going off, and opens the hall door to find flames creeping down the walls and cieling of the hall. Then her daughter opens her bedroom door, and says "Mom, I'm jumping out my window, I suggest you do the same." Little did they know at the time, that the daughter had been jumping out her window into a tree to go out at night for years.... So the daughter gets out with no problems, but this woman (In her sixties at the time.) and her husband (Of equal age) have no escape but to jump from the second story un-aided. The husband breaks an arm, and she a leg. The daughter finds them, and they cant find the brother/son is.... They figure he's still asleep in his room which was on the opposite side of the fire in the hall from them, and the house is quickly becoming fully engaged. So they start thowing rocks through his window, which hit his guest, who is sleeping on the floor in the forehead. The drunken brother wakes up, realizes what is happening, and that they too have no escape other than out the window. He then throws his drunken friend with the head wound out the window, who lands like a sack of cement, and jumps out after / on top of him. The fire consumes most of the house, and starts falling in on itself as the Fire Dept arrive.

Moral of the story... Don't let your drunken son bring home late night house guests, and get rid of that light in the linen closet....


Mark Heller
"Well - I oughta....." -Jackie Gleason
#96126 11/05/05 06:40 PM
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 2,056
R
Member
I have done several, and in case you don't know, it is essential that you wire this as a switch loop.
It is almost impossible that you will get any more than the wires from one cable in the switch enclosure.
That being said, they work fine.

Hey e57,

No fair! I was waiting for a punch line. [Linked Image]

[This message has been edited by Redsy (edited 11-05-2005).]

#96127 11/06/05 10:49 AM
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,143
D
Member
Did several of them in the high-end custom homes my old EC used to wire. Usually MC/Greenfield from the switch box to the j-box/lamp in the closet.

+1 for switch legs only, however.


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