This happens when the hot and neutral wires get flipped around at an outlet, or upstream from an outlet. Reversed polarity creates a potential shock hazard, but it’s usually an easy repair. One of these wires is connected to the earth, or ‘grounded’, so this wire is called the grounded conductor.

If the portable light goes off when you switch off any breaker, leave that breaker off. Go to the portable light and remove it from the first outlet. Plug the portable light into the second outlet. If the portable light does not go on, then the two outlets are on the same circuit.

If you mistakenly connect the LINE wires to the LOAD terminals, the GFCI will not reset and will not provide power to either the GFCI receptacle face or any receptacles fed from the GFCI.

Plug the tester into the GFCI, then push the “test” button on the front of the GFCI. This will make the “reset” button pop out. If the lights on the tester stay on, the GFCI is still live, and that means it’s wired wrong. Get an electrician to fix it.

But here’s the catch: If you connect the circuit wires to the wrong terminals on an outlet, the outlet will still work but the polarity will be backward. When this happens, a lamp, for example, will have its bulb socket sleeve energized rather than the little tab inside the socket.

Attach the red wire from the light fixture to the nut at the top left of the switch. Connect the bare copper wire to the green nut at the bottom left of the switch. Push both switches into their boxes and secure them with screws at top and bottom. Turn on your power and test the switches.

Connect the red wire in the ceiling to the black wire in the light kit and the black wire in the ceiling to the black wire in the fan. Tuck the wires back into the box. Turn the power back on and test the fan.

The answer is that the Red Wire is the Hot Wire from the switch itself. You are wiring your fixture into a junction box where buku wires come together. Hook the white to white, ground to ground and RED to the BLACK Light Fixture Wires. The other conglomeration of black wires does not connect directly to your fixture.

The exact purpose of a red wire for a light fixture can vary. If the wire still is hot, the wire is a hot wire that delivers electrical power to the branch circuit. If turning the switch off turns the wire off, the red wire delivers power from the light switch.

Basic Knowledge of How to Wire a Light Switch

• Black Wire – This is the hot or load wire.
• White Wire – This is the neutral wire.
• Bare Copper (Green) Wire – This is your ground wire.
• Red Wire – This wire is used for 3 or 4 way switches and will connect the switches together so they can each control your lights.

The third red wire goes into one of the two terminals along with one of the other reds. The third red is the feed to the next lights in the circuit, in your case the bathroom. It will have been in one of the terminals on the old switch along with the live feed (one of the reds) from the last light in the circuit.