3-way question (Home Electrical/switches)

[tgrrdr]

my friend has an odd (to me) setup in the house she rents. The installation was apparently done by her now retired and living out of state landlord who was not an electrician.

The hall light is controlled by a switch near the garage door and a motion sensor switch near the bathroom. She got zapped recently switching the light on or off and is now slightly paranoid about the switch. I told her it's easy enough to replace 3-way switches and I could help her with that but I'm NOT an electrician and don't want to f things up worse than they may already be f'ed up.

There's a black wire on the regular switch connecting two terminals that I should probably be able to figure out what it does (something with the always hot part of the circuit?) but I didn't find anything in my google search and now my brain hurts.

I guess my two basic questions are:
1. can I pull these switches and replace with "normal" 3-way switches?
2. What is that black wire for and does it need to be there?

thanks for any feed back.

 

[tgrrdr]

oh, the regular switch has black, white and red wires going into the back and the short black wire connected to the terminals on the side.

The motion sensor is labeled Heath Zenith and has on/off/auto positions for the rocker (and looks pretty old) .

 

[motomania2007]

Since it is likely a DIY installation, I would not trust the wire colors as having any meaning at all.

The best bet is to remove the switches and use a volt/ohm meter to determine what wires are present and where they go to and come from.

Then compare that to a correct 3 way switch set up and install 2 new switches properly.

If that is over your head to do, hire an electrician.

 

[bikeama]

Black should be hot
White should be neutral
Red should be traveler.

TURN POWER OFF
Disconnect both switches, turn power on.

Check if black is hot wire, should have power from black to hot and black to ground.
Check to see if White is neutral, have power to black and no power to ground.
Check to see if red is traveler, should show no power from hot if both ends disconnected.
If red shows correct then test with OHM meter to make sure red has connectivity from each end.

IF any wires do not test correctly get an electrician and save your self some trouble.

Lot of diagrams on line should be wired as below.

 

[AbsolutEnduser]

my friend has an odd (to me) setup in the house she rents.

The hall light is controlled by a switch near the garage door and a motion sensor switch near the bathroom. She got zapped recently switching the light on or off and is now slightly paranoid about the switch.
..
1. can I pull these switches and replace with "normal" 3-way switches?

I actually think that chances are low that the zapping problem will be fixed by merely replacing the switch . "The chance" is low, that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying there is not a bigger problem with that house's situation

because I don't think you can be zapped by the Switch Itself (so a plain replacement may not help)

but you can be zapped by:

- the screws already at the wrong place! Maybe a hot wire is running/touching to them
- or it's a simply good situation: she "got zapped" might simply mean she had static on her body from her synthetic blouse and touched a correctly wired ground screw. (no?)

Basically remove switch and figure out hot wires first.

In any case I'm subscribing.

 

[motomania2007]

I actually think that chances are low that the zapping problem will be fixed by merely replacing the switch . "The chance" is low, that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying there is not a bigger problem with that house's situation

because I don't think you can be zapped by the Switch Itself (so a plain replacement may not help)

but you can be zapped by:

- the screws already at the wrong place! Maybe a hot wire is running/touching to them
- or it's a simply good situation: she "got zapped" might simply mean she had static on her body from her synthetic blouse and touched a correctly wired ground screw. (no?)

Basically remove switch and figure out hot wires first.

In any case I'm subscribing.

I thought of that as well but did not mention it.

A few years ago I lived in a rental house that had electrical issues. Turned out it had no ground connection. The grounding rod next to the house was there but the wire connected to it wasn't connected to anything inside the CB panel...

We had some interesting electrical issues in that house until I found that loose ground one day.

 

[dmaxAl]

Not enough info. Was it ever working as a proper 3-way? Don't see how that's possible cos the motion sensor is probably a single pole single throw.

This is probably an easy fix, assuming the circuit as a whole has the correct 3 way runner wire between the two switch positions. If you have a simple continuity tester, turn off the power, disassemble both switches and the light jbox itself - make sure Mr DIY hasn't hidden something up there (yup, seen that one).. Label the wire ends, make sure the connectors dont touch. Now turn the power on and carefully test for live (live circuit test pens are worth their weight in gold here, Home Dump electrical carries em). You should see a live (probably black) pigtail in one of the switch jbox'es. Now rewire the whole thing using bikeama's pretty pic.

 

[afm199]

Until you show the other side, the back side, and the wiring on the other switch, there's no way to answer this.

 

[dmaxAl]

Until you show the other side, the back side, and the wiring on the other switch, there's no way to answer this.

:afm199 :cool

 

[tgrrdr]

thanks everyone for your feedback. If I get a chance in the near future I'll take a picture of the back of the motion sensor switch. I may also take my handy multimeter and see what I can find out.

My actual recommendation to her before I started this thread was "here's the number for the electrician who redid the wiring in my house. He lives pretty close to you, why don't you give him a call and have him come fix it..." :teeth

 

[tgrrdr]

.If I get a chance in the near future I'll take a picture of the back of the motion sensor switch. I may also take my handy multimeter and see what I can find out.

Didn't have time to check with my multimeter, but the wires look similar on the back of the motion sensor. It doesn't seem to have a place to attach the ground wire though.

 

[JimE]

There's a BUNCH of ways to wire a 3-way in. Some of them are even correct. My suggestion is to disregard colors as they are rarely remarked properly. Like when white is used as a traveler on a blind ended switch for example....

Remember THIS: The "common" terminal is the common pole of the switch. It will always be either the "line" (supply hot leg) or the "load" (lamp hot leg). When one of these is not on the common terminal you will have a situation where the lamp will work only with one switch and only with the other switch in one position. I'll bet you've see that before! So identify the line and load then work from there.

In that picture above you can see the red has been connected to the white and there is only a three wire cable coming into the box. This means the white is being used as a traveler (hot line NOT a neutral) and should be connected to either the line or load (both should be black) in the other box. This is effectively connecting either the line or load to the common terminal of the switch they are just using the white wire of a multiconductor cable to accomplish the task.

Clear as mud?