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Posted by corbettandkerri on January 19, 2006, 1:12 pm
My older house is wired differently than any of the books or online
schematics I've seen and need some help and feedback. They have wired
two three-way switches and an outlet using only 12/2 wire. How you
ask?
Hopefully this can explain:
Switch 1
show/hide quoted text
Common<->black of incoming power
Traveler1<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire
Traveler2<->white of outgoing 12/2 wire
Switch 2
show/hide quoted text
Traveler1<->white of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
Traveler2<->black of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
Common<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire to outlet
Additional wiring in Switch 2 box
show/hide quoted text
White of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->White of outgoing
12/2 wire to outlet
show/hide quoted text
Black of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->two-way switch on
an unrelated light
Outlet
Typical hot/neutral 12/2 wiring
What I want to do is add a light that is also three-way switched using
these switches. I want to keep the outlet as is and wire the light
between Switch 1 and Switch 2. The outlet is not accessible to pulling
additional wires.
Please help if you understand this interesting wiring scenario. Thanks.
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Posted by Joseph Meehan on January 19, 2006, 1:25 pm
corbettandkerri@gmail.com wrote:
show/hide quoted text
> My older house is wired differently than any of the books or online
> schematics I've seen and need some help and feedback. They have wired
> two three-way switches and an outlet using only 12/2 wire. How you
> ask?
> Hopefully this can explain:
> Switch 1
> Common<->black of incoming power
> Traveler1<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire
> Traveler2<->white of outgoing 12/2 wire
> Switch 2
> Traveler1<->white of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
> Traveler2<->black of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
> Common<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire to outlet
> Additional wiring in Switch 2 box
> White of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->White of outgoing
> 12/2 wire to outlet
> Black of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->two-way switch on
> an unrelated light
> Outlet
> Typical hot/neutral 12/2 wiring
> What I want to do is add a light that is also three-way switched using
> these switches. I want to keep the outlet as is and wire the light
> between Switch 1 and Switch 2. The outlet is not accessible to
> pulling additional wires.
> Please help if you understand this interesting wiring scenario.
> Thanks.
I understand enough to know the kind of language someone working on them
10 years from now is likely to use, it they can speak at all.
--
Joseph Meehan
Dia duit
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Posted by SQLit on January 19, 2006, 1:52 pm
show/hide quoted text
> My older house is wired differently than any of the books or online
> schematics I've seen and need some help and feedback. They have wired
> two three-way switches and an outlet using only 12/2 wire. How you
> ask?
> Hopefully this can explain:
> Switch 1
> Common<->black of incoming power
> Traveler1<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire
> Traveler2<->white of outgoing 12/2 wire
> Switch 2
> Traveler1<->white of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
> Traveler2<->black of incoming 12/2 wire from Switch 1
> Common<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire to outlet
> Additional wiring in Switch 2 box
> White of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->White of outgoing
> 12/2 wire to outlet
> Black of incoming 12/2 wire (second power source)<->two-way switch on
> an unrelated light
> Outlet
> Typical hot/neutral 12/2 wiring
> What I want to do is add a light that is also three-way switched using
> these switches. I want to keep the outlet as is and wire the light
> between Switch 1 and Switch 2. The outlet is not accessible to pulling
> additional wires.
> Please help if you understand this interesting wiring scenario. Thanks.
Ideally you could come off of one of the light locations and run a new cable
to the location of the light.
Or you could add a cable from switch 2 to the new light location.
Is your box big enough to add another cable. into it?
By the way in residential the only thing that is odd is that they used 12.
Any other solution is not as "clean"
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Posted by kevin on January 19, 2006, 2:40 pm
You are in for some trouble, since your existing wiring is completely
against code, and a bad situation to boot.
Just think for a second about how this circuit looks. The current's
path starts at a circuit breaker (on a black wire) goes to a switch 1,
goes to switch 2, goes to the outlet, goes into the appliance, (and now
on the white wire) back out of the appliance, back to the outlet, back
to switch 2, but now takes a turn and heads down a different path to
possibly a handful of other boxes and junctions, who knows where else,
then eventually back to the neutral in the breaker panel.
Essentially you have a big 1-wind electro-magnet here. Besides breaking
code, I can think of dozens of consequences, e.g.:
You are broadcasting emf interference all over the place, probably
interfering with radios, televisions, and other wireless devices. (And
I have heard stories of such circuits interfering with hearing aids and
all sorts of other sensitive electronics and things with antennaes,
even over to your neighbors houses).
You can get inductive heating in several of those junction boxes,
posing a fire hazard.
Heaven forbid someone reverse the hot/neutral in some other place in
your house that happens to share one of those power sources. You would
either get two same hots at your outlet, or 240V. You don't even
mention if the two power sources are on the same circuit breaker or
not.
If someone puts a GFCI somewhere on one of those two now-joined
circuites, it would either trip constantly (b/c of too little current
on the neutral in the one case), or it would not protect you in the way
it is supposed to (b/c of too much current on the neutral).
In other words, besides the potential for future changes to make this
much worse than it already is (and who knows, maybe it already is much
worse -- you don't know unless you have traced through the WHOLE
circuit on both sides, everywhere it goes), you have some active
problems like inductive heating and radio interference.
Lucky for you, this is pretty easy to fix. Just ditch the one power
source, and add a 12-3 cable where it belongs.
-Kevin
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Posted by SQLit on January 19, 2006, 6:27 pm
show/hide quoted text
> You are in for some trouble, since your existing wiring is completely
> against code, and a bad situation to boot.
Ok Kevin get out your code book and post the back up to your statement, give
sections and page numbers.
I have never found a color code in the NEC, especially when it is
residential. ( ok there is one reference to a color code but it does not
apply to this situation)
I await your code sections.
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Traveler1<->black of outgoing 12/2 wire
Traveler2<->white of outgoing 12/2 wire