Friday, August 3, 2018

Sideways Horizontal Toggle Switch Covers Explained

To fit more light switches into your electrical box, an electrician may have installed horizontal toggle switches (or stacked switches).

Sideways toggles are a great way to have extra lighting control in a single slot of your electrical box, and are very common in both commercial and residential bathrooms.

Many people get super confused when they want to replace a horizontal toggle switch cover. Especially when they happen to sit next to a regular single vertical toggle switch.

Here, we'll show the correct replacement switch plate for stacked sideways horizontal toggle light switches.

But first, I have to explain about 2 types of electrical outlets. (This won't take long, and it is related to horizontal toggles, so bear with me.)

Two very common styles of outlets found in homes are:
"DUPLEX" and "BLOCK/GFCI".
Note the different shapes of the devices & their cover cutouts:


Duplex outlets are the ones we're going to focus on today.

They fit into a cover with 2 oval-ish openings with a screw right in the middle:


OK, now moving on to horizontal toggle switches

If you look closely at the base underneath the switches, you'll see they have the E.X.A.C.T. same shape as a duplex outlet:


Horizontal toggles were intentionally made to fit the same cover as a duplex outlet, so that a new specialized plate would not have to be created for people to install & use them.


If you have a 2-gang box (an electrical box that fits up to 2 devices side-by-side) with 3 toggle switches (2 horizontal and 1 vertical), you'll need the same plate as if you had a duplex outlet next to a single vertical toggle switch:


Shop horizontal toggle & combination switch plates at Kyle Switch Plates. Covers are made of sturdy steel right here in the USA and come in nearly 20 quality wall plate finishes.

1 comment: