3-way switch wiring

[TromboneAl]

Soon after we moved in, the outlets in one of the bathrooms weren't working. I was about to give up and call an electrician, when I realized that they were tied to the GFI plugs in the other bathroom! So when the GFI was triggered in bathroom 1, which happens frequently, the plugs went out in bathroom 2.

Guess electricians make mistakes too.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Al...very common for a house to be wired with both bathrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, or bathroom/kitchen and outdoor plugs all back to one gfci.

I'm sure theres a reason for this, other than saving a buck fifty an outlet.

My house has two of the three bathrooms, the garage outlets, and the outlet on the back of the house all wired to a single gfci in the laundry room. My old mcmansion had all the plugs in the upstairs bath wired to a gfci outlet in the garage. Lemme tell you how much fun THAT was to figure out the first time I popped the circuit...

My dads "retirement community" home is wired with a separate gfci for every outlet. There are no standard plugs in the house. Never seen that before either.

[dumpster56]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl Soon after we moved in, the outlets in one of the bathrooms weren't working. I was about to give up and call an electrician, when I realized that they were tied to the GFI plugs in the other bathroom! So when the GFI was triggered in bathroom 1, which happens frequently, the plugs went out in bathroom 2. Guess electricians make mistakes too.

That might be code. We had that in all our homes the past 20 years. the GFIs would trip in one bathroom and all the bathrooms go dead.

[hankster]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cute fuzzy bunny Al...very common for a house to be wired with both bathrooms, a bathroom and a kitchen, or bathroom/kitchen and outdoor plugs all back to one gfci. I'm sure theres a reason for this, other than saving a buck fifty an outlet. My house has two of the three bathrooms, the garage outlets, and the outlet on the back of the house all wired to a single gfci in the laundry room. My old mcmansion had all the plugs in the upstairs bath wired to a gfci outlet in the garage. Lemme tell you how much fun THAT was to figure out the first time I popped the circuit... My dads "retirement community" home is wired with a separate gfci for every outlet. There are no standard plugs in the house. Never seen that before either.

We found this out at our present home when a curling iron + hair dryer in one bathroom combined load with a space heater in the other bathroom. Poof! Circuit breaker took out both bathrooms. We're now careful to coordinate the use of high watt devices in the bathrooms.

[Westernskies]

Saw a bumper sticker on a truck at the gas station today-

"Wiring is not a hobby- Hire a licensed Electrician"

The truck was a 2008 F-350 XLT Crew Cab 4 x 4 Powerstroke Diesel Dually with custom wheels, a lift kit, etc, pulling a new 30' hi-performance offshore-type speedboat with twin V-8 engines.... matching custom paint jobs on both. High-maintenance surgically enhanced blondes in the front and back seats...

I'd study Trombone Al's diagrams a little longer before I called this guy in.

[kcowan]

Interesting trivia: 3-way switches are called 2-way in Mexico.

Any number of 3-way switches can be wired up so that it is really N-way.

In daisy-chained wiring schemes, a GFCI in any outlet will protect all downstream outlets.

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcowan Interesting trivia: 3-way switches are called 2-way in Mexico. Any number of 3-way switches can be wired up so that it is really N-way. In daisy-chained wiring schemes, a GFCI in any outlet will protect all downstream outlets.

I like the Mexican dialect for this. Technically, the '3-way' switch is a SPDT (Single-Pole; Double-Throw), and more likely to be called a '2-way' switch by technical people. I suspect electricians started calling them 3-ways because there are 3 connections.

For N-Way, you need a '3-way' at each end, and a '4-way' at every added 'N' point in between.

http://www.homeautomationindex.com/4waywire.html

Depends on the GFI - some have switched connections for the downstream, and some just route the un-switched power to the other terminals. You need to pick the right one for the right application.

GFI's were probably fairly big bucks back in the day. Or, if added after the fact, easier to put one in and protect a string rather than replace all of them, and the plates.

-ERD50

[TromboneAl]

There is a place near here where one road meets another in a T-junction. The place is called "Three Corners" but of course, there are only two corners.

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Well hey, when someone is standing there, they form a 3rd corner. If nobody is there, then nobody knows!

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TromboneAl There is a place near here where one road meets another in a T-junction. The place is called "Three Corners" but of course, there are only two corners.

But there are only two corners if the main road is *perfectly* straight. Since it cannot be perfectly straight, it would be more like a 'Y' intersection, and there would be three corners.

Or something like that. - ERD50

[TromboneAl]

Yeah, that's probably what they were thinking when they named it.