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Would anyone be able to take a look at this and direct me to the ground in the box, if any. Long story short I’m installing a dimmer that comes with a green ground and don’t know where to attach it. I prefer not to use the plastic faceplate. Also, is it okay to simply change one of the 2 switches or do I need to do both? The left one is pigtailed so I prefer not to change that one. Thanks!

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  • The box itself should be grounded, and in canada that's good enough to use, but I don't know if that's up to code in US. – dandavis Jan 16 at 22:39
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    @dandavis -- not if the box is made from plastic, as it is in this instance :P – ThreePhaseEel Jan 17 at 2:01
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It's the bundle of bare wires in the rear right of the box

Since we are dealing with NM cables here, we know we need to look for a bundle of bare wires in order to find our grounding connection. As it turns out, there is a bundle of bare wires heading through the center of the box and into a wirenut in the back right; it's simply not obvious that they're bare (I can tell from the diameter) because someone slopped a bunch of white paint and/or drywall mud into the box during construction.

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  • Good find, Threephase! I missed it until you pointed it out. I hate it when painters or drywallers come in and have no respect for wiring, not even taking a few minutes to stuff some papers into the fixture, switch and outlet boxes. I recently finished wiring my son's new build and the idiot painters just blew paint over everything. Maybe I should have been the one to cover them, IDK, what's standard practice? – George Anderson Jan 16 at 21:00
  • @GeorgeAnderson -- stuffing newspaper into the boxes before the painters/drywallers come in is a good idea to keep them from getting totally crudded up, yes – ThreePhaseEel Jan 16 at 21:28
  • @ThreePhaseEel Thank you for the quick reply!! 👍 – Jhay Jan 18 at 21:56

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