Bathroom light switch

[trueweb]

My 2008 Raptor requires bathroom users to be tall enough to reach the ceiling to turn on the light which was creating a small problem for our family.

I purchased an inexpensive RV switch from Amazon and proceeded to install in last night.

I removed the light and used a hole saw to open the ceiling behind the light. Once I could stick my hand up in there I found a hole where factory wires ran down from the ceiling into the wall. I fished a new pair of wires down the wall and cut a small hole for the switch. I snipped the hot side of the light's switch and spliced in the new wall mounted switch. In hindsight I should have done the ground side since there was no juice on it with the light switch off.

All in all it was a simple mod that used about 4 ft of 14ga wire from Lowe's and a $10 switch from Amazon to make it much more convenient to turn the light in the bathroom on and off.

If you're going to try something like this be sure to scout out where you might have wires going into the ceiling from walls. If I did not have a factory cut hole it would have been a challenge to get the wire from the ceiling down the wall.

Now to install one of those fancy fans with the remote control!

[trucker LOU]

hey True, I also installed light switch in bathroom along with switch for the fan.----Lou----

[Pull Toy]

Been thinking about doing the same for the vent fan! Why can't the vent and light work off of the same wall switch, or at least side by sides, if you're not boon-docking? At least you won't have to stand up, with your shorts still down!

[jsmith948]

Same here. The DW is a bit vertically challenged. The bathroom light had a wall switch but the switch for the vent mounted fan was in the plastic vent frame. She would poke at it with the broom handle to turn the fan on/off. Bought a 12v rocker switch and snaked a wire down the wall next to the light switch. A happy wife makes for a happy life

[sourdough]

Just a thought. I think you did the right thing switching the hot side. That's what I do on all my wiring. You can switch either side but when you switch the grd side and the light, appliance etc. goes off, most folks think power has been shut down to that particular device. Switching the ground leaves the hot lead hot so if a person was working on a 120v something, standing in a pool of water, when he grabbed the supposedly dead "hot" lead he would get lit up. I always check anything that I didn't place just to keep from having that vibrating feeling from AC.

[trueweb]

sourdough, thanks, hearing it explained that way makes a lot of sense. What I should have done was pull the fuse before did the work. I'm not worried the 12v will hurt me, but I do worry about shorting things out and the same logic can apply to 110 which can hurt me.

I thought about doing the fan too, but since she can't reach to open the the vent turning the fan on doesn't help much. I'm thinking about one of the motorized fan and vent options with remote.