Light switches

18 years ago

My "L"-shaped hallway has a light switch at the end of each leg, a switch at the intersection of the legs and a ceiling-light the middle of each leg.

Originally, the ceiling-lights could be turned on/off from each switch.

I've replaced the original switches with new switches but now only one switch operates the ceiling-lights.

Should a three-way switch be installed at each end of the hallway and the four-way switch be installed at the intersection of the legs? If the answer is "NO", at what location should each switch be installed?

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Comments (4)

billhart
18 years ago
It depends on what order the wires visit those locations. Whichever box had a 4-terminal switch before should still have a 4-terminal switch. If you found 3 wires on the switches at the ends and 4 wires on the one in the middle, that would sound reasonable but it isn't the only order the wires could have been run.

If you are just replacing switches, it is a good idea to do one at a time and test the result. Much easier to fix a problem when you know which box it is in.

I suspect your problem is that one or more of the new switches has its terminals physically located in a different order than the old one. You need to study any diagrams that came with the switches, and possibly to use a continuity tester on both the old and new switches to determine the correspondence.
terribletom
18 years ago
Should a three-way switch be installed at each end of the hallway and the four-way switch be installed at the intersection of the legs?

The answer is maybe. Yes, you need two three-way switches and one four-way switch, but the location of the four-way can't be determined with certainty from the facts given.

The four-way switch needs to be placed in the middle of the pair of traveller wires that runs between the two two-ways.

Since you say you have replaced the original switches with new ones, I'm guessing that you probably have the correct combination of switches in the right order since, otherwise, you would have had too few wires in one box and not enough in another, if that makes any sense.

It is more likely that you didn't connect the correct wire to the common post at one or more of the two-way switches.
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terribletom
18 years ago
Sorry, I'm having trouble with onesies and twosies today. Substitute "three-way" every time you see "two-way" in my post above. Glak, dunno how I did that!

[A strange world. I think that's twice this week I've posted at the exact same instant as billhart. Heh, it's just coincidence, man. :-) ]
joed
18 years ago
Look at your old switches and identify the common terminal. It should be marked COMMON or be black in colour. Look at your new switches and identify the common terminal. The common may not be in the same physical location on the two switches. This is what normally messes people up when swapping three ways.

You can't move wires by location when swapping three way switches. You must identify the common. The other two don't matter.
On a four way switch the wires are in pairs. There is no common. You must properly pair up the wries by the screw terminal colour.