How to change a light switch?

Hi! I’m David Lupberger with servicemagic.com. We’re going to talk about how to replace a single pole switch because over time, these things break so we want to put a new one in.

The first step, always make sure you go down to your electrical panel and you turn off the appropriate circuit. Be very careful that you’re not working on the switches when the power is still on. It can be dangerous.

After making sure the electricity to the switch has been turned off, you remove the face plate. There’s a second set of screws that hold the actual switch to the electrical box. Remove those next. First thing I’m going to do is loosen the ground wire. I know it’s a ground wire because it’s an unsheathed copper wire and it connects to a green screw. We’ll take that off first.

Next, there are two ways to attach the wire to the actual switch. These are actually plug-in attachments or you can actually screw it in. It’s quicker to do it this way so I’m going to cut the old wires and get it ready for the new switch.

I’m going to take a handy little stripper tool. Expose that wire, we’ll do it on both and you’ll see, I now have the wires like in plug-in to the back of the new switch. So you’ll see the back of the switch, you’ll see the screws, you can actually attach the wire to the screw but I’m going to go ahead and use these two holes where I can push it in and it’s a little bit quicker assembly when I do that.

Now, we’re going to attach the ground wire in a simple little tip here as the screw is going in counterclockwise. Make sure the wire wraps around the screw in a counterclockwise fashion because as the screw tightens, the wire is brought tighter around the screw itself.

Now, we reverse the process and on the switch you’ve got these screws to put the switch back into the box so I’m going to go ahead and screw the new switch into the existing electrical box. So, I’ll tighten this cover back on. Next thing I’ll do is go downstairs, turn the power back on, come back, check for light to make sure it works, and that’s how you replace a single pole switch.