On Tue, 06 Nov 2007 23:33:22 +0000, Paul Soderman wrote:

Today I realized that our light dimmer switch, when set at the highest
point, does not seem to get the lights as bright as they had previously
been. I should point out that the power was also out a bit today in my
area.
I am suspecting that perhaps a power surge or else maybe just the age of
the switch may have caused this problem to "come to light", but I had
though that if the switch failed, the lights would simply be at their
brightest and that the dimming mechanism would not work.

I am going to replace the switch anyway, but wanted to check out if my
suspicions were correct; can the dimmer fail so as to result in a mid-
level brightness of the lights?

Thanks for any help!
Paul



Dimmer switches are no more than rheostats. If carbon were to build up
on part of the switch, it may be sufficient to affect voltage. Might
cause a voltage drop.

You could test this with a volt/ohm meter.