"Mash" wrote in message
...
I'm replacing a ceiling light fixture in my kitchen, we've only lived
in the house a few months. I removed the old light and in the junction
box there are four romex cables coming into the box and the wires for
the light.
So let's call the four Romex cables C1, C2, C3 and C4.

The first 3 are easy, C1, C2, C3 all have their black wires tied
together and all have their white wires tied together (and all ground
wires together).
C4 confuses me a bit (but that's not that hard to do), The black from
C4 goes to the light, the other wire from the light goes to the group
of white wires all tied together which makes sense...but the white
from C4 is tied into the group of black wires. Why would that be? I
would think that the white from C4 would get tied in with the white
wires, not the black wires....does this make sense?
Many thanks


It was necessary to wire it that way to include the wall switch in the
circuit and have a black wire and a white wire feed the light fixture. If
you were to open up the switch you would find that the white wire is hot and
the black wire is the load feeding the fixture. If the black on the switch
was hot and the white was the load you would end up with two white wires
feeding the light fixture. This wiring scheme is normal and an accepted
practice.

Do not make any changes to the wiring. Just disconnect the two wires from
the existing light fixture and connect the new light fixture to them.