I am picking up 25 volts on a light switch circuit when the switch is off, what is happening? It shows 110 on

Question

it also shows no current, so no bad connections

I did have the lightbulb removed

the light fixture was removed actually

Answer 1

you can NOT read voltage across a switch when it is ON, unless the switch is broken.

Answer 2

Having voltage on the downstream side of the switch when the circuit is off is not normal.

If you think about it, the downstream side of the switch is actual at the white, neutral line voltage or less if the switch is off.

Sometimes this neutral line can carry a volt or two, but 25 volts is a hunk!

If, as you said, the line downstream of the switch is disconnected from everything and is essentially hanging in the air, so you have supply, switch, wire, air, then I'd have to say the switch is bad. (It isn't a dimmer, is it?)

If there is still a good connection there is the possibility that your neutral wire is running at 25 volts. You could check that elsewhere in the circuit or house.

If the neutral wire in the whole house is at 25 volts there is a problem that is worthy of contacting an electrician, or perhaps someone else out there could tell you how to handle a neutral wire with 25 volts on it. I suspect it has to be grounded at the main switch box but don't know for sure.

Answer 3

OK, from what you saying there a few possibles. There may be three wires total. Two are actually no more than ground and one is Hot. If, you look inside your outside Breaker box you can see two possible wire configurations. Two Hot wires off the Breaker itself, measure voltage from either wire to ground you should get 110/120 volts. Measure both Hot wires and you get your 220/230.
Look where the ground wires go. Two ways, they either ALL go to a Grounding bar OR if a more modern setup, you will see wires go to a ground bar and also a neutral bar. One has the wire go down to the rod in the ground and the other does not, the latter takes feedback voltage from motors and stuff. OK, now back to your three wires. As, I say, there two that ground and odds may be you have the latter mentioned setup for ground. Depending on who wired the light and how they attached the wires. You are still probably getting a feedback voltage to Ground/Neutral. You would need to know where the Light wire is tied in. Probably the closest wall socket. So, you getting a voltage through something plugged in. This is probably a normal thing. You would almost have to remove everything from the wall sockets and have all light switches off to not get a volt reading. You could turn off the Circuit Breaker in the house to see which Sockets and Switches go dead and know what all to unplug. But, even here, there may be a wall plug in an adjoining room that work off the same breaker. I may have confused all this, but, try to give you a quick run down, how this all works and there many ways an Electrician may have connected the wires. Electricity is funny how it work.

Answer 4

Most likely it was wired wrong and/or the ground is improper. A switch should cause a break in the "hot" wire(BLACK). The white should be directly connected to the light. I have seen people directly connect the hot wire and use the switch to break the white. Either way you light will not turn on until it has both connections to compleat the circut. However with the hot wire connected you can still get shocked. White wire you can't

I------>BLACK----->---@light---->-
I I
[]BREAKER I
I V
I I
I-------<--------WHITE--<---------<-I

Answer 5

You CAN be shocked by white wires. Sometimes white wires are used to send power to a switch. Sometimes they are used as one leg of a 220v circuit. You can also be shocked by a white wire even if it grounded and being used as a neutral conductor, if you get between open neutrals, the current will go through you to get back to the source.