The Geek Redneck - Installing A Programmable Light Switch Timer

In this video I go through the steps of installing a Utilitech branded Digital Light Switch and Timer. This is one of the neatest devices you can get for your home, especially for automatically controlling outside lights like your front porch or security lighting!

---

Closed Caption:

hello youtubers it's the geek redneck
here in today is wednesday i believe it
is the fourth of december two thousand
thirteen and I'm on another home
improvement project
now i'm sitting here looking at the
light switch and one of these light
switches
well one of them is for the hall light
here and the other one
n is for our outside lights which you
can see I have turned on right now
this one's for outside lights and we
like to leave our porch lights are
outside lights on at night at least in
the front
we've got energy efficient bulbs in
there right now i have compact
fluorescents eventually I'm going to put
LED bulbs in there and we like to leave
them all that it's feel safer
you know people say porch light on
regardless of what if someone's here or
not they're going to thank someone's
here and much this to grin of our
neighbors we just leave them on all
night but a lot of times I'll forget to
turn them on or we'll forget to turn
them on and leave somewhere and then
come back home and it's dark and we're
trying to get out of the car and get to
the front door and get the front door
unlocked and its pitch black outside
so with that in mind we bought ourselves
a timer
i have here this is well she don't know
what brand is because they covered it up
utilitech is the brand this is a digital
timer and what this does is this goes in
place of a light switch and
has a little visual display on there and
you can program it
I think it has two or three different
programs you can set up but the main
thing is you can program it to come on a
certain time of the day
stay on for a certain number of hours
and then go off at a certain time of the
day so this is installed
I can set it to come on at five thirty
in the afternoon
over here during the winter that's about
when it starts to get pretty dark here
in North Texas and then i can turn
around and program it to turn the lights
off
you know about 6 30 or so in the morning
right after it starts to get light and
of course during the summertime i can
adjust that time you know so that they
come on the lights come on at nine
o'clock at night during the summer right
30 and then go off and you know it's
seven in the morning or whatever
so yeah good deal as you can see this
timer here it is in the package comes
with a wall plate and this wall plate is
actually the same wall plate that you
would use for one of those flat rocker
switches so with that in mind you can
see we have a duel gang wall plate here
got two switches one of these is for the
hall light and the other one this one
here is for the outside line
so we had to get something to get a dual
a double gang that wall plate and we got
that right here you can see that we have
one flat rocker switch type played on
the left side and then one regular
standard flip switch on the ride
now of course i could have gotten we
could have gotten taking this
opportunity to go ahead and replace this
light switch with another rocker style
and then get one of these double gang
plates with 22 of the big flat holes
there but you know it wouldn't match
everything else in the house
we're not going to replace all the light
switches in the house with his rocker
rocker style switches that you know this
is what we want to do so with that in
mind I have got the lights turned on so
that i can go out and find the breaker
the ghost of these lights and going to
get this wall plate off and get this old
switch out and that this new one in
kool beans and of course your your wall
plates or just held on with little flat
head screws
they don't have very many threads so
don't lose them it's going to come out
off a quick your flat-head screwdriver
and take them off and sometimes once you
get all the screws out
it's hard to get the plate off
especially if people have painted around
it but just you know if you have to get
a putty knife or something and pop it
loose
ok so now I've got my breaker turned off
see no more lights and how to set the
other switch goes to this light and i'm
pretty sure that I've got the sub
pressure these are both on the same
circuit usually not in opposite times
when you're dealing with a double game
that I like this there are going to be
on the same circuit but if you're unsure
if you're worried
don't take any chances your find the
other breaker or you want to be double
sure just turn the main breaker off at
your service panel shut off power to the
whole house and you know use a
flashlight if you need to to see what
you're doing but better safe than sorry
you know you only have one life you
don't want to screw that you don't want
to stop your heart
nothing like that so be safe always so
that I've got that and then I'm going to
find my philips head screwdriver and
take this switch here out
so here's my philips head screwdriver
again this is kind of hard to do because
I i'm looking through the camera so I've
lost my three-dimensional vision
there we go like i said in my other
video if you don't have yourself a
ratcheting screwdriver
boy are you missing out
let me tell you is that screw that we
don't have very long screws and the
bottom one
I can get it in there I love my
ratcheting screwdriver
somebody i think my get into my aunt and
my mother got this for me a couple years
ago and I sell you what
best thing ever best gift ever
no get switched out i can just pull it
out
expose the wires again the switch is not
grounded which is so odd
none of the switches are grounded in
this house and then I've seen so far and
that is really weird for a house built
in 1994
oh well I'm not see what I can do about
that I'm a not so now I just need to
replace the switch and well yes i can go
ahead and undo the whole switch and
that's just basically two Phillips head
screws as you can see the way these
switches work
most of these switches is that of course
you know when your electric wiring you
have a hot wire you have a neutral and
you have a ground usually a copper bare
copper ground
well what the switch is usually do at
least a single pole in like this then
just take one side of the wire so
usually the hot side of the wire the
black wire and you cut the wire and put
the switch in between it and that way
you're interrupting the circuit way to
turn the light switch is very simple
operation so get my philips head
screwdriver again and this is going to
take two hands so I can't use the camera
bit
you got the gist of it and do those
screws the wires will pop right out then
you'll be ready to put in a switch
ok so I've got the the timer open here
the package open and we're looking at
the time or of course the timer has well
you see
1 2 3 4 wires on it we have a black a
red and a white and a green
now the black and red or you're hot and
load the black is going to be your hot
wire coming from your circuit breaker
box or wherever you know it's going to
be the hot wire the red is going to be
the load wire that's going to be the
wire that goes to the reset to the
lights or whatever it is you're
controlling you have your white wire
which is going to be a neutral wire and
you have your ground which is of course
going to attach to the bare ground
that's inside the box and there's your
wires and you also get Spanish
instructions and English instructions
and they're fairly clear and concise so
we get to put this thing in
now this digital timer want separate
access to not only the hot hot wire but
he wants access to that neutral the
white wire so luckily in here
they've got the neutral wire is all
found up there with a red cable wire net
so i can should be able to work with
that
get my white wire in there take the
cable night off the wire net off get my
white wire in there and then put it back
together
it's going to be interesting all right
well now I've got the switch is wired up
for the switch wire didn't mess with
this one I just took it out so I can see
what was going on with the wiring back
there because they are sort of they're
on the same circuit so they're tied in
together
the only thing i'm not sure about is
which one of the black wires is actually
going to allow it i mean that's the hot
wire but the way of us which is wired
unless its color code which it is and of
course it's all in the same piece of
Rome mix you don't know you just kind of
have to look and see if maybe you can
see which way the cables going or
something like that but if you get them
reversed
it's not going to screw up anything the
switch just won't work
so yeah and the other thing I'm not a
hundred percent sure about as if the
switch is a going to affect the this
hallway light it's going to affect the
operation of this circuit it shouldn't
you know in my head I got it figured out
it shouldn't but you never know these
are weird
so if that's the case then this just may
not work may have to just you stick with
using a traditional switch but we'll see
I'm going to flip the breaker back on
and do a smoke test a high success
you can see how this is upside down
we've got a display on their flashing
twelve o'clock and if i push the switch
and you're going to see a bit
yay
so I got it working now
I get the job of trying to tucked all
that back into this little duel gang box
which gives me a little more room than a
single gang box but this switch just
timer is awful fat but it'll work
then we go back and shut off the power
again so I don't set myself
well I'm putting all that back in all
right so i have my switch back you know
I have my little electronic timer in now
it's good idea especially when you're
dealing with a double gang plate no
matter what kind of switches you're
using might want to wait to tighten
these down all the way these screws and
these screws the ones that go into the
junction box so that you can sort of
line
your switch plate up and make sure
everything's going to look good and if
they're going to line up right and that
way you can adjust these if you need to
left a ride see there's a little bit of
wiggle room and that way you know you
can make it look really good and then so
I'm going to finish tighten these down
i'm going to put the new wall plate on
i'll be done
all right well I got a circuit breaker
back on got our outlet cover in place
there's the switch for the hall light
here's the switch for the outside light
as you can see the way the way this
timer is made you have a little cover
here that lets you access the timer
controls but you can always manually
turn the switch on or off just by
pushing that data control there
pretty cool so now i'm going to go about
setting up the Turner but that's the end
of this video hope you guys enjoyed it
this is a geek redneck signing off
Dios