Electrical problems

So, ever since I installed the switch in the bathroom, it has been having problems. It made noises and couldn't keep the lights on, often rebooting itself. So this weekend, I was starting to replace it, and looking at the instructions, and saw that the switch only supports 600V, which I knew, but didn't even think about when installing the switch. Well, I decided to look at what kind of bulbs were in the fixtures, and sure enough, the bulbs left over from the previous owner were all 120V bulbs... so, it seems there was somewhere between 800V and 900V coursing through this switch rated at 600V.

I replaced all the 120V with 100V-equivalent (actually 26V) CFL's and tried the switch again. Sure enough, it worked.... except for a single fixture, which was making buzzing noises. I turned off the breaker again and pulled down the fixture from the ceiling. The wiring sheath had been burned off the wires, and the wires were exposed. Turns out those wires were only rated for 60V or 80V, and the previous owners were more than happy to put 120V bulbs (2 in each fixture!), thereby ruining the wiring.

So I called my electrician out for a minor emergency Saturday call, and he came and replaced the burned out wiring. I turned the breaker back on and turned on the lights... wa la! The lights worked great. Then I tried to test the communications of the switch... . Turns out the overload of the voltage seems to have burned out the communications of the switch, so I essentially have a $38 light switch (sans UPB capabilities). So, I had to replace the switch anyways.

On the software side, I set up HomeSeer with an email address, so it can email me under certain situations (e.g., nobody is home, but the front door opens).