Top of Mind: Call an Electrician, Stat!

Posted 10/15/2010 at 3:08pm | by Michael Brown

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Immediately after installing a pair of Klipsch's new LightSpeakers in my ceiling (look for my online review soon), I discovered that the Intermatic Z-Wave dimmer that controls those ceiling cans wasn't compatible. I'm guessing it's because the dimmer expects to see an incandescent load, and the LightSpeakers feature LEDs. No big deal, I figured, I'll just replace the dimmer with a conventional model. 

I won't be able to control those particular lights with my Schlage LiNK installation (read my review here), but the Klipsch system comes with a wireless remote control of its own. As you can guess, this was easier said than done.

The junction box in the wall has not one, but four devices: one switch for the ceiling fan, a dimmer for the light in the ceiling fan, a dimmer for the ceiling can over the fireplace, and a dimmer for the two ceiling cans over the bed (these last two are the ones I'm swapping out with the Klipsch LightSpeakers). In order to remove the Z-Wave dimmer controlling the cans over the bed, I had to pull all the other devices out of the way. I then made the not-so-brilliant decision to put them in a different order, so that the dimmer for the LightSpeakers would be furthest to the left and the switch for the ceiling fan would be furthest to the right.

After 45 minutes of trial-and error effort trying to figure out which wires controlled which devices, I threw in the towel and called the electrician who wired the house when it was built. I'll post an update when he finishes fixing my mess. I'm hoping he'll tell me where I went wrong, and how I could have done this project the right way the first time.