On Sat, 22 Jun 2013 07:33:45 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Saturday, June 22, 2013 9:23:06 AM UTC-4, Doug Miller wrote:
Robert Macy wrote in

:



Fred, can't understand the source for this confusion. I want any

switch to be able to turn ON/OFF the lights as before. It's just

that I need to be able to 'set' them all up at least once in

their lifetime so that late at night it's easier to figure out

which switch turned on the light.



(1) You CAN'T figure this out by looking at only one of the switches. It simply is not possible.

(2) If the light can be turned on by any of the switches, it can also be turned off by any of the

switches -- which means it does not matter which one turned it on. You can turn it off from ANY

of them, not just the one that turned it on.

This whole thing is amazing, isn't it? At one point, Dennis had me
half convinced that Robert knows how these switches work, but that
for some OCD reason, he just wants then arranged so that one possible
way for the lights to be off is for all of the switches to be down.
Like if all switches are down at every location, then he knows
everything is off without any further checking. There is actually
a usefullness to that. If, for example, you were leaving for a
trip you could just visually look at all the switches at every wall
plate involved. If they are all down, then everything is off.

But, from everything he's now saying, it sure looks like he
thinks he can just tell from the one switch plate which switch
controls the light because if the light is on, the switch must
be up. Of course it doesn't work that way. I think that was
what we were all questioning, before doing this re-arranging,
he should understand the very limited effect he's getting.

This thread has made me convinced there is at least some use to
flipping 3-way switches. I am going to try it.

The house I live in now, I moved into when I was 12. I have since
inherited it from my parents as they are both dead. My sister and I
had a shared bathroom. On the door going into the bathroom from my
bedroom there is a 3-way switch for an overhead light and a single
pole switch for the medicine cabinet.

At the other door coming from my sister's bedroom there is only a
3-way switch for the overhead. With both lights off and both switches
in the down position on my side of the bathroom, the switch in my
sister's bedroom is off in the up position.

So for some 40 years now, the switch on my side of the door seems to
be in a constant state of one switch up and one switch down when both
lights in the bathroom are off. Although I have never asked her, it
seemed to me that she was intentionally causing the light switch to be
down in her room when the light is off.

I am going to flip the position of the switch on her side and see it
that changes how the order of switches ends up on my side of the
bathroom. My niece (her daughter) currently using her bedroom today.
My old bedroom is not being used, but guests still enter that bathroom
from my old bedroom side.