3-way dimmer and switch problems

[ScoFF1]

In my bathroom is a dimmer that controls all the bathroom lights. It doesn't turn of, but if you turn the knob all the way down it's off. In the bedroom next door there is a normal light switch that also controls the on/off lights to the bathroom. It's a 3-way switch. The bedroom has it's own switch for the bedroom lighting, that's ok.

Right now if you turn the dimmer on or on a bit you can turn them off from the next room with the switch. If the dimmer is all the way down, I'd like to turn the lights on (full) by flipping the switch on the room regardless of the bathroom's dimmer switch.

The switch is pretty much useless now for turning on the lights because naturally, if the lights are off the dimmer's all the way down. It's only good for turning them off. Then if I go to turn on the lights from the bathroom after that happens, they don't come on because the bedroom's switch is off.

Is there a way to turn on the bedroom switch and have the lights go on regardless of the bathroom's dimmer setting? I'm thinking there's not because if that were to happen, and the bedroom switch is set on (and the bathroom was on full) the dimmer wouldn't be functional anymore.

I think I'm just going to replace the dimmer with a 3 way switch.

[RBM]

Either just replace the broken dimmer with a standard three way switch or you can get a master- slave set, like Lutron Maestro. This way you can control dimming and on-off from each location

[RBM]

[ScoFF1]

I don't think the dimmer's broken, it just turns up and down, it pushes in but nothing happens. I figured that was the way it worked.

If you turned the dimmer down and then off at the one dimmer, then go to the switch and turn it on, would it come on dim as you left the other control or could it come on full strength?

[RBM]

If it is a three way rotary dimmer, it should turn the lights on and off by pushing it. Any three way dimmer - switch combination will only be adjustable from the dimmer side. If you leave the light level set very low, the switch side can only turn lights on to that level

[Joseph Meehan]

I suspect everything is working as it is expected to work. However there are other options.

I suggest you take a look at

They will show you many of the possible choices and give you some ideas of what might work best for you. Read the information carefully, as it can be a little confusing with the three way choices. You can buy most of the products a number of places or order them from smarthome. Good Luck

[buffalobill]

[mm]

Well, if it pushes in, it's meant to turrn the light on and off that way. Someone here said this design was cheaper and more likely to fail than the ones that turn the power off at the end of the knob's rotation. That might be true. OTOH, it has the advantage of helping one keep the same brightness setting from one time to the next, if this matters to you.

The first of course, unless you buy the fancy thing that RBM suggested in his previous posts.

The way I see it, the switch in the bedroom was either there originally for some other purpose or it was meant for the end of day when you forget to turn the light off in the bathroom, so you won't have to go back to the bathroom to do this. If you would get into the habit of never turning the bathroom dimmer so low that you can't tell the light is on, you could continue to use the bedroom switch. But that would end up causing the bathroom light to be on at least a little when you didn't really want it on.

If you replace the dimmer with one whose on/ooff switch works, when it's off, you won't know which switch turned it off (or even if it is so dim it doesn't give light,( but still uses some electricity???.))

This is a standard problem wherever someone replaces one half of a

3-way setup with a dimmer. Is it worth buying the special switches (you'll need a set of two) like the ones that RBM told you about?

Remove NOPSAM to email me. Please let me know if you have posted also.