On Nov 6, 12:20*pm, Frank wrote:
On Nov 6, 10:52*am, N8N wrote:





On Nov 6, 10:35*am, gcotterl wrote:

I have an L-shaped hallway with:

* * *a ceiling light in the middle of each leg
* * *a light switch at the end of each leg
* * *a light switch at the intersection.

Several years ago, I used to be able to turn the lights on and off
from any switch. *But now the lights can be turned on and off by only
one switch (at the end of one leg).

In previous attempts to resolve this problem, I replaced all of the
switches but I didn't record what wires went to each terminal.

Question: *What kind of new switches do I need (single-pole, 3-way, 4-
way) and how many of each?

How do I determine what wire connects to each terminal of each switch?

You need two three way switches and one four way (or you can use three
four way switches and just disregard one terminal on each.)

To determine how to hook them up, you'd have to open up all the boxes
and puzzle out the wiring. *There's many different ways they could be
hooked up and it is difficult to determine from here which you have

nate- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm counting only 2 switches. *I had same problem and learned that you
have to replace exact wires on switch when you replace a switch.

I kept playing around with it and finally an electrician with his
meter figured it out for nothing as he was making an appraisal on
another job for me.

I used to live in a house that I was renting from a guy who had
"updated" the electricals (translation: he had replaced the switches
and receptacles.) Unfortunately he wasn't real careful wiring up the
three way switches, and to make matters worse, the house had old cloth
covered wiring which meant that all the wires were a dirty brownish-
grey color

I figured out how to make the hall lights work properly in an
afternoon, but it's one of those things, I can *do* it but God help
you if you want me to show you *how.* Worse yet if I have to do it
over the Internet...

Probably the easiest thing is to pull everything out of the wall,
disconnect everything, and first identify which wire is still hot
(after you turn the breaker back on, because you turned it off before
you started, right? RIGHT?)

From there, hopefully everything will be self evident (pay special
attention to which individual wires come from which cables) but if
not, either hooking up a 3-way at the "hot" location and continuing to
the other locations and/or using a 9V battery and a test light can
help trace out what goes where.

good luck

nate