On Sat, 03 Jul 2010 13:52:24 -0400, mm
wrote:

On Sat, 03 Jul 2010 09:51:24 -0400, Nate Nagel
wrote:

On 07/03/2010 08:12 AM, Gordon Shumway wrote:
On Sat, 3 Jul 2010 01:35:13 -0700 (PDT), Michael
wrote:

Somewhat OT. I have a regular switch for my outside light that lights
when the outside light is on. The curious thing is that my
electrician put it in using existing wiring and there is no neutral in
the box. The house is 70 years old and there are only 2 wires in the
box and the box is not grounded.. How is that possible?

If there are only two wires in that box one wire is hot and one wire
is common. You have no ground in that box. That's the way houses
were wired 70 years ago.

or one wire is hot and one is a switch leg, which IMHO is more common.

nate

Either way, his question was how does the light switch light when the
outside light is on?

Clare mentions a neon light, but they light when the outside light is
off.

I can't answer Michael's question. Maybe someone can.
Used to have a neon pilot mounted on the switch plate of the basement
light switch in the old farm house. It was a PILOT light - on when the
basement light was on. Big flickery old neon bulb - NE0010 if I
remember correctly.

Didn't flicker nearly as much on 60hz as on the old 25Hz from the
Niagara Adam Beck #1 station.