On Sun, 24 May 2020 01:33:50 -0500, Jim Joyce
wrote:

On Sat, 23 May 2020 20:48:03 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 23 May 2020 16:10:36 -0500, Jim Joyce
wrote:

On Sat, 23 May 2020 12:51:33 -0700 (PDT),
wrote:

Finally found a solution to our bathroom wiring nightmare!!! Thank you!!

One of the two pairs of wires goes to the switch. You have to figure
out which one. Best thing to do is to disconnect all the wires, turn on
the breaker, then CAREFULLY use a neon tester to see which wire pair is
"hot". This is the one that ISN'T the switch.

Then TURN THE BREAKER OFF AGAIN, connect the BLACK wire from the pair
you found to be hot to the WHITE wire of the other pair (the pair that
goes to the switch) with a wire nut. Then connect the remaining black
and white wires to the fixture.

Your "solution" is the beginning of a whole new nightmare. What you're
describing is not right.

When you use NM as a switch loop, that is exactly right. The white
wire is the hot to the switch and it is not a neutral.

I wasn't thinking of switch loops. They aren't common where I come from.

The fairly new NEC change (14?) that requires a neutral at all
switching locations will make switch loops pretty rare in the future.
It was very common to use a ceiling light box as a junction box for
all the wiring going to that end of the house and where a multiwire
circuit was split out. The switch that controlled that light was
always on a loop. Typically the other hot side of that multiwire fed
another ceiling box in another room and that was where that feed got
split out. It saves wire but the down side was that a whole room went
dark when the breaker tripped. That was before all multiwire circuits
were required to be grouped in the panel and be on a handle tied
breaker so they might split some of the receptacles on a shared wall
to give you some power in the room if the other breaker tripped.

The far end of my house is wired that way. I did put the multiwire on
a 2 pole but I also pulled in another circuit.