Electric Question

[Mickey]

I removed two light fixtures in a room. One worked with two three way switches and the other one was on a separate single switch. I have installed one new light in the room and was able to run the three way wiring to the new light. My question is I now have the wire from the other single pull switch---Am I able to at the new light fixture attach wiring from the three way, the wiring from the single pull to the new fixture by nutting all whites and all blacks at the new light fixture??

Hope this is clear, lol.

Thanks Mickey

[Wayne Whitney]

Hi Mickey,

You want all three switches to operate the single fixture? This will require a 4-way switch, and you definitely can not do it the way you suggest. As to whether it is feasible some other way, you'd need to provide a more detailed schematic of the wire runs and boxes involved.

Anyway, here's a WAG as to what you had and have (where IP is incoming power and --2-- is a 2-conductor (plus ground) cable).

Original: IP --2-- SW1 (3-way) --3-- SW2 (3-way) --2-- Fixture 1

IP --2-- SW3 (2-way) --2-- Fixture 2

Presently:

IP --2-- SW1 (3-way) --3-- SW2 (3-way) --2-- Abandoned Fixture | IP --2-- SW3 (2-way) --2-- Fixture --------2------|

If you abandon one of the incoming power cables, then the only way to make all three switches work would be to have all the boxes connected with 3-conductor cable.

Now, if the incoming power goes to SW3 first, and power goes from there to SW1 , and that box has no outgoing power feeds, then you can do what you want. You can wire it like this:

SW1 (4-way) --2-- SW2 (3-way) --1-- Abandoned Fixture | | 2 | | | IP --2-- SW3 (3-way) --1-- Fixture --------1------|

Where I have only indicated the number of conductors that you would be using in each cable, some of the conductors would be abandonded. Note that --1-- is the neutral going to the fixture, and I don't know if it is allowed to run the neutral separately from the switched hots like this. Can anyone comment?

Cheers, Wayne

[Tony Hwang]

Hi, Did not jot down which wires are going where when removing the fixtures? No one can tell for sure how it's wired without looking at it. If you lost track, I'd test with multi-meter and sort them out. good luck, Tony

[toller]

Your question is a bit sparse on detail, but I am reasonably sure you cannot do it. You would almost certainly need 4wire from the light to the switch, and you probably only have 3wire. (Even if you had 4wire, you still couldn't do it unless there was also 4wire going to the light from the 3 way switches. Wiring wise, all the switches have to be in a chain, connected with 4wire.)

[SQLit]

You want to tie both switches together in the light? Not a good idea

If the switches are on different circuits your cruising for a bruising. You know the splices must be accessible....