light switch

For what reasons would a double dimmer light switch get warm?

 

A double dimmer light switch ?? Do you mean two dimmers in a double box ?

Most dimmers are rated for 600 watts used singly and one to a box. If you use two next to each other since the amount of heatsinking goes down.... so does the wattage. The closer you run a dimmer to maximum wattage... the warmer it gets.

What size dimmer do you have and how many watts of lighting are you running on it ?

 

What was said. Pete, he may have one of these installed, not sure. Only John Wayne used fewer words Lutron, Skylark 300-Watt Single Pole Dual Fan Control and Dimmer - Light Almond, S2-LFSQH-LA at The Home Depot - Tablet

 

yes I do mean two dimmers in a double box. How do I find out the size of my dimmers? for the kitchen I think the lights watt adds up to 371(7 53w bulbs) and for the dinning room it adds up to 200(5 40w bulbs)

 

Usually if you remove the trim plate.... you'd see the rating right on the metal heatsink of the dimmer.

The part of the dimmer that attaches to the junction box is the heatsink. It's job is to remove the heat from the dimmer itself. It is normal for a dimmer to run warm at half its rated wattage. With both dimmers running at the same time.... the trim plate could become quite warm. That would be normal.

 

If you do not care for the heat and you have a plastic box, you can swap it out for a metal "old work" gang box to help give the heat somewhere else to go.

 

The heatsink face plate on most single-gang wall mount dimmers has three tabs, or ears, on each side. The tabs are designed to be snapped off if they need to be.

The faceplate with all six tabs is wide enough that when two dimmers are mounted next to each other the adjacent tabs will overlap. To mount the dimmers flush, half of those overlapping tabs must be removed. Best practice is to remove the top and bottom tabs from one face plate and the center tab from the other one, leaving three tabs that will interweave. Better practice, when the loads are different, is to remove one tab from the dimmer supplying the higher load and two tabs from the dimmer supplying the lower load.

Take the wall plate off, check to dee whether there are still 5 tabs on one dimmer and 4 on the other, and read the rating on the faceplates.

600W is common, but there are 300W dimmers on the market.

 

I have never had one of these before and just wanted to make sure that It was normal.