Fixing the errors from the failed SwitchLinc install

In this post I detailed a sorry tale of failing to install a SwitchLinc which ended up with the end of my fishtape stuck in the wall and an indirect control system.

I have since bought what I can only describe as an Endoscope, it is essentially a small USB camera attached to the end of a 5 metre USB cable. Taping this to a straightened out wire coat hanger enables me to shove it into the wall cavities and see exactly what is going on in there. What I discovered was that the wall is essentially built in 2 parts, there is a header at the top of the lower part with a hole in it and this hole is quite full. The top part of the wall is a much larger cavity, with the hole from the lower part and other wires through it.

To resolve my problem, I found that the old wire that I was removing had caught on one of the staples where it was attached to the stud and it was the only wire under that staple. This means that I can brute force the wire and either pull it from under the staple, rip the staple out of the stud or break the wire. Regardless of how it comes out, there is no chance of damaging another wire. I removed the staples in the ceiling joists and untangled the power wire from some other low voltage cables and set my jack handle in a loop, using the leverage I was able to remove the old wire.

Looking from above, I found that indeed, my fish tape had caught another wire, and there was no way that I was going to be able to retrieve it. I took the dremel to the tape and cut it off, leaving the smallest amount of tape in the wall.

Now for my next trick, I will push the tape up the wall from below, I will use my endoscope to see what I am doing and get the tape through the hole at the top of the bottom wall section. Once the tape is through, I will go into the attic and use the endoscope to find the end of the tape and another coat hanger to hook the loop and pull it through the hole into the attic. Then it is a relatively simple case to attach the new wire and carefully pull it back down through the wall into the switch box and a very simple case to run the wire through the attic to the ceiling box for the dining room lamp. Then I can remove the InLineLinc I temporarily put in and hook the chandelier up.

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