It's late at night. My wife is in bed, asleep. I'm working late at the computer. Suddenly, my wife appears and says the bathroom fan just came on by itself, and she can't shut it off. Every time she switches it off, it switches itself back on. (She's referring to the en suite exhaust fan.) So I get up and go with her, only to find that the fan is on. I switch it off, and sure enough, it switches back on.
A harrowing, halloween, haunted-house tale of a possessed fan?. Given the time of year, you might think so. But no, it's a true story, involving a Leviton Decora wall switch. This is an ordinary electrical switch, not a controlled switch.
Let me explain. I recently replaced several X10 chicklet style switches with Decora style X-10 switches, and added several more Decora X-10 switches as well. My house originally had normal toggle style electrical switches, but now all of the controlled switches were Decora style.
So, deciding to replace the remaining, non-controlled toggle switches with Decoras, I bought a box of ten Levitons. These switches have a rectangular plastic ring around the front, similar to the removable ring on the X10 Decoras, except that this ring is not removable, it is part of the switch body. It is this ring which holds the Decora paddle in place, by holding two small protrusions which extend from the rear of the paddle at its centre, one on either side, behind the ring.
The paddle itself is pushed forward from the rear by the spring pressure of the contacts. On this particular switch, the forward pressure had caused the ring to weaken and break on one side, right at the point where the paddle protrusion was pushing against it. This allowed the paddle to actually extend forward out of the ring, which in turn allowed the contacts to go to their default position, which happens to be ON. Hence, the paddle could be pushed to the OFF position, but as soon as it was released it would revert to the ON position. In fact, the paddle could be simply pulled (or could fall) right off of the switch, exposing the live contacts.
Well, I replaced that switch and started keeping a eye on the others I had installed. Sure enough, another one (the one for the exhaust fan in the main bath) started developing a bulge at the pressure point. It was very slight at first, but continued to grow and develop cracking, until it looked like it would break at any time. So today, I replaced that switch, and just as I was taking it out, sure enough it popped. Another one from the same box of ten, which is controlling an outlet, appears so far to be okay.
So my concerns with these Leviton switches are several: first, with the manufacturing/quality control that would allow them to break in the first place. Secondly, that the paddle can fall right out, leaving live 120V contacts exposed, just waiting for a child to stick his finger in. And finally, that the switch actually defaults to the ON position. We tend to rely heavily upon our wall switches, thinking that if they are switched off, that everything is safe. Just suppose, as an example, that a space heater was plugged into an outlet controlled by one of the switches, and some clothing happened to fall on the heater. Now suppose the switch breaks, and the heater turns on--how long until the fire starts?
