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A classic electrical troubleshooting project is when your 3 way light switches only work in a certain combination or just don’t function as designed. These issues can be tolerated for years but if you want to dig in and solve this issue once and for all let me walk you through an issue at my own home and talk about other common wiring schematics which might help you in your own scenario
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You briefly touched on a scenario that once bit me. While changing a light switch in a 2 gang box, I located the breaker for the light and turned it off. I made the assumption that the breaker turned off power to both switches in the box, (natural assumption) but I was wrong. The 2nd switch was actually on a different breaker and it quickly made me aware of my oversight when I grabbed it. So yes, have multiple switches in the same box on different breakers can and does occur. Be careful.
I hate romex so bad, ive worked with emt all my life and it makes wiring all this so much easier since you just pass travelers into another pipe and leave a tiny loop, giving you so much more room, and no need to wirenut
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I like what you did. Just make sure you don't share neutrals across circuits.
Great topic. I moved into a house with a garage with mystery wires in the junction box of a three-way with a dead motion sensor switch. That was literally my first-ever home ownership project. I eventually just made some assumptions and got it working. I've since replaced the new motion sensor wih a Kaza smart 3-way (and added motion sensors elsewhere in the garage), but I still have no idea where all those wires went to.
Maybe I missed it, but how did you conclude what every wire was without tracing them all with a continuity tool or similar process?
Thanks!
The nice thing about physical reference books for electrical work is that they don't need electricity.
That may have Mia wired from the build because you can tell all the wires had white paint where the painted the house on the rough in
Am I the only one that noticed a red wire tied into the neutrals?
More or less as an aside, I have run into a situation where the switches were after the light, switching the neutral. While this works, it is not code because it leaves a socket hot with the switch off. It can happen especially in older homes which were remodeled from knob & tube and the wires were not properly identified.
I'm surprised you didn't switch out those wire nuts for Wagos.
Good video, but I must add that @Sparky Channel is THE goto for all wiring challenges. Check it out.
If you Google "3-way light switch", there are MANY more ways to do it than in that book. Tens of them. I'm glad yours was an easy fix. Nice one, Scott! You're really busy these days!
Ages ago, at least 40 years, a BIL had disconnected a 3-way light system, but didn't label where the wires went back and he could not figure it out. While visiting one time, he asked me to look at it. I had never done one before, so I had to schematic-it-out on paper to see how it could work, using my electrical experience knowledge, and I also had to figure out how the 3-way switches worked by ohming out where power was being switched and what was normal input, reading one terminal at a time to the other two and flipping the switch. I figured out what is likely the most common way it's done, connected all wires that way and it worked.
About 10 years ago, I wanted my living room light to have two switches. I cut the hole to mount the switch box behind an existing switch on the other side of the wall, added Romex to it from the attic at a junction box, replaced the door switch with a 3-way and added a red 14 AWG runner there, connected it all the same way as before and now there are two switches for the living room. That was a rented house and I left it that way when I bought this house and moved. I may do that to this living room and I'd love to add a hallway light. This house didn't even have a doorbell, so I added one to new Romex in the AC/Furnace closet with the ringer on the wall above the access door.
Thanks for the video. It looks like the switches were initially installed incorrectly. Did this ever work?