Light Switch Replacement Question

[swimrr]

I have an old twist style dimmer switch that controls the light in my dinning room. I am going to change the light to a fan and therefore need to change the dimmer to a regular on/off switch.

When I took the old switch out from the box I found that there were 2 black wires going into the switch, a ground wire going into the switch, and the white wires (common I think) were just pig-tailed in the back of the box.



Is this a 3-way switch? If so, I have no idea where the other switch is for this fixture.

The new switch has 2 brass screws and a black screw and no ground screw. Do I just connect the two black wires to the two brass screws and leave the ground wires pig-tailed to each other and the white wires pig-tailed to each other in the back of the box?

I also have another dimmer switch in the bedroom that is more simple. It has a ground, a black and a white wire. However, the new switch only has 2 screws. I've read that in Canada none of our switches have ground screws but I'm not sure if that's correct. If so, how does the switch get grounded?

I've changed plenty of switches but haven't run into these issues before. Obviously I'm more of a noob than I thought and want to make sure I get these wired correctly. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[The FIB]

One black is the line in, the other is is the load (feeds the fixture).

It is not a 3way, but it sounds like the new switch you have is, all you need is a single pole switch to replace it.

 

[Mustang51js]

If you use the switch u have now,its one black wire to the black screw,which normally i do the hot wire,and the other black to a brass screw,which brass screw will determine the direction of on off if you dont put switch in upside down. If you just hooked to the brass screws the light wouldnt work

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Nope not a 3-way.

But u can use a 3-way. Follow what mustang said...

 

[swimrr]

Thanks everyone, I got it all sorted. Black wire in from power and black wire out to new fan. Pretty simple once I figured that I didn't need to mess with the common as it was already pig-tailed in and the ground could stay connected to the switch box.

Then I tackled the light in the bedroom which had 3 sets of wires running to it. In addition, the ceiling is coming apart around the box so it was a bit of a mess. It took me a while to figure out why there were 3 sets of wires. Turns out one set is from the breaker, one set runs to the kitchen lights and one set is to the switch. A lot of trial and error later I figured them out. On my first try the bedroom light was permanently on until I turned it off and then back on at which time the breaker blew and the kitchen lights went out. So black directly to the light was obviously not correct. Eventually I figured out that all I had to do was connect the main wire to the kitchen wire so the kitchen worked. The bedroom light stumped me for a while until I realized that, again, all I needed was power into the switch and power out of the switch to the light fixture. So I disregarded the black and white wires and treated them as black in and black out, connected that black to the light fixture, and the fixture white wire back into all the common white wires.

Tada. Now the light works as it should and I have it all sorted for when I get the ceiling sorted out and the fan installed.