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I noticed 3 issues in the wiring of my 36-year-old property:

  1. In my light switch box, there are 3 cables: a cable for power coming in, one for the light fixture, and one for power going to the rest of the bedroom. (Each w/ hot, ground, & neutral.) The room cable needs to be hardwired to the light switch terminals! I.e. the light switch hot and ground terminals are connected with wing nuts to the power supply line, along with the cable that powers all the outlets in the whole room.

    I found this out while installing a 1-gang light/fan switch, because I thought one of the cables was for the fan and another was for the fan light. Nope! The switch controlled all the outlets in the room when wired that way.

  2. The bathroom outlet seems to be another Point of Failure for my bedroom. The power in my room wasn't working, but the other rooms on the same breaker were fine (2nd bdr., bath, hallway). I discovered that jiggling something plugged into the bathroom outlet caused the power in my bedroom to be intermittently interrupted!

    I am guessing that it's a loose wire near one of the terminals on the outlet. If it was a short, I believe the breaker would have tripped, and more rooms would be without power. I don't want to risk something dangerous that could cause a fire.

  3. The bathroom sink outlet is not GFCI. There's a GFCI outlet in the bathroom closet, but it's on the washing machine breaker circuit (and the buttons are painted stiff). Should I get one, or would it be redundant -- is the breaker good enough, i.e. does the breaker box already do the job of the GFCI outlet?

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    Loose connections are also dangerous and can cause fires.
    – user253751
    Jul 13, 2021 at 9:04
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    First you have not asked a question, made statements that show you have limited experience. The single circuit not jumped to the switches was most likely a home diy screw up with a switch change. The loose connections are common with backstabs but the NEC and UL still allow them I should not be complaining they put my son through college. Last a GFCI may not have been required when built depending on your jurisdiction but is the receptacle protected or not? Only 1 form of protection is required having multiple can cause false trips and hard to reset. You need to ask 1 question not statements
    – Ed Beal
    Jul 13, 2021 at 13:23
  • You don't seem to be a new SE user, so you should understand that a single question per ask is appropriate. You should also know to actually ask a question, not just make statements.
    – FreeMan
    Jul 13, 2021 at 14:07

1 Answer 1

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  1. Usually the lights and outlets will be on separate circuits. While it seems that the room is not wired in a standard way, it should still be safe.
  2. This is unsafe. Most likely a faulty outlet. Possibly a loose connection. This should be fixed immediately.
  3. The bathroom sink outlet should be on a GFCI circuit. That could be in the form of an outlet or breaker if it is on its own circuit. GFCIs and breakers provide different functions. GFCI will protect you from electrocution, while a breaker will only trip if a circuit is overloaded.
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    Lighting circuits are rarely in separate circuits in a box this comment is wrong. The op did not state if the bath receptacle was GFCI protected so depending on the code version in the jurisdiction GFCI may not have been required. As far as the loose wiring if backstabs were used this is a common problem.
    – Ed Beal
    Jul 13, 2021 at 13:13
  • As this answer says the breaker for the bathroom might be a GFCI breaker. Go look at your breaker for the bathroom. Is it a standard ordinary breaker or is it a GFCI breaker? If it is an ordinary breaker, the easiest thing to do would be to leave it there and put a GFCI receptacle in place of the standard receptacle in the bathroom.
    – Jim Stewart
    Jul 13, 2021 at 17:04

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