A friend of mine (I really mean that) recently changed their light fixture in their bathroom from an old one with an outlet on it to a nice new light fixture that does not have an outlet built in.

After installing the new light, my friend realized that the bathroom now doesn't have an outlet for her hair dryer.

In my apartment I had the same dilemma, and I opened up the light switch. There were 5 wires inside, 2 common, 2 high, and a switched wire for the light. I then wired in a switch/outlet combo.

When I opened up her light switch, there were only 2 wires. Is there any way to change this light switch to a light switch/outlet combo?

Thanks

 

No. A 2-wire switch circuit has no neutral, only a hot coming from the panel to the switch and a hot going from the switch to the light. The switch just connects the hot from the panel to the hot going to the light to turn the it on, and disconnects them to turn the light off.

Actually, the only way to accomplish this mission is to bring a new cable, with hot, neutral and ground, to this switch box. But when you upgrade a circuit you must bring it up to today's electrical code, which opens up a can of worms - including providing GFCI and having the bathroom on its own dedicated 20 amp circuit.

However, when replacing an existing device (medicine cabinet/light/receptacle combo in this case), you are permitted to replace in kind without upgrading the whole circuit. If you look on the medicine cabinet, many of them have a square knockout meant specifically for the receptacle option. This square snap-in receptacle is available at most home centers. The existing medicine cabinet had a neutral at it and probably an extra hot that was unswitched (unless the existing recep didn't work when the switch was off), so you would just bring the existing neutral the existing unswitched hot, and the existing ground wire to the snap-in receptacle, if you have the square knockout that is. Hope that helps.

Juice

 

One question would be is the house done in pipe or romex if it is conduit(pipe) the fix is easy. Just drag a neutral to the switch box and add a switch gfci combo. if it is in romex follow the instructions in the previous post

 

Thanks sparky. I'll try that out. The apt is wired with BX cabling, so I should be able to use the box as a ground. Now I just have to find the GFCI, switch combo.
I'll report back when I have it done (although I'm on vacation for 2 weeks).

 

I was going to do the work this weekend, and I believe I misread your reply. Can I connect the neutral of the outlet to the metal box. This would, in effect, use the ground as the return path rather than the neutral.

This is what I was going to do, but it seems as though you, Sparky, were saying that I need to bring in a neutral into the metal receptacle box, and that I would get the neutral behind the new light fixture. Since it is BX cable, you are saying that it should be easy the drag or push a neutral through the bx cabling to the outlet, switch. How do I feed the wire through the BX, since the light fixture is 10 feet from the switch and on the opposite wall?

Thanks for your help

 

Absolutely do not connect the neutral to the metal box.

I think the easiest thing to do would be to add a new receptacle somewhere near the light fixture. It would be easy to do if you could get a new cable from the light fixture box to the location of the new receptacle.

Forget the switch. Use the light.