On Sunday, February 26, 2017 at 11:16:13 PM UTC-5, philo wrote:
On 02/26/2017 09:33 PM, Ken Hockenberry wrote:
In the basement staircase of my older home (inside my attached garage) I want to eliminate a 3 way switch at the end of a circuit, and install a light fixture near the switch I want to remove - at the bottom of this staircase.

When I removed the cover from this switch I found 4 blue wires, one of them marked with black tape. The 3 way switch itself is very old (circa 1959) with four brass screws, two at the top and two at the bottom.

Can I eliminate this switch, and install a needed light fixture, using these 4 blue wires from this switch?

The switch at the top of the steps is the switch which has power coming into it.



Rather than me trying to explain the wiring, if you google you can find
the diagram but what you describe is not a three way switch.

A three way switch is single pole double throw.


What you have is a four way switch...the other two switches would be the
three way type.


He has a DPST switch, which like you say, is typically used in the
middle of a 4-way, with 3 way, SPDT switches at either end.


If you have a total of two switches than I don't know what you have
there...so you need to trace out the wires.

You can also do a 3-way with two of his DPST switches, one at each
end. Here's a diagram, look part way down:

http://diy.stackexchange.com/questio...switches/40423

It seems that he probably can do what he wants, which, as I understand it,
is to have the existing 3-way light be controlled by the other location
only and have the new light controlled by a switch at the location of
the DPST, 4 terminal switch. He needs to find where he has the hots
and neutral and work accordingly. But since with a 3 way he has two
wires going between the two locations, I think it should be possible.