I have two switches in my bathroom. The first controls two lights, the second controls a fan.
I would like to change it so that the first switch controls one light, and the second switch controls a light and a fan.
I opened the switchbox and am confused by the way it is wired. Here is a drawing (I did not draw ground wires, each switch has one):
My explanation of the picture (possibly bad terminology) is we have two neutral wires coming out of the box that are wire-nutted and pigtail connected to the top "traveler" of the switch that controls both lights.
Another pig tail comes out the bottom "traveler" and is wire-nutted into two neutral wires coming out of the box, and another pig tail connecting all four wires into the bottom "traveler" of the switch controlling the fan. A red "hot wire" comes off the top traveler and goes back into the box.
This wiring situation is not intuitive to me (I know nothing). I thought maybe the two wires at left were because there are two lights, but why are there two wires on the right for just the fan? And why are these switches wired together via the pig tail across the bottom? I expected to see two hot wires going to each switch, and no connections between them. How does the switch that controls the lights work without a hot wire going to the switch?
If it is the case the the two wires on left are for each light, can I move one of them to the cable nut on the right to have it be controlled by the other switch?
Best Answer
So the short answer is you can take one of the wires out of the nut and swap it with the red wire of the fan, and that will do what you want.
The medium answer is you could do what Harper suggested and replace the single switch with a double switch and control all three independently. You would take the bottom wire from the switch and place it in the brass terminal, and one each of the 2 wires going out to the lights in the 2 silver terminals.
The long answer is, your drawing only shows "hot wires". They should all be black or red. My guess is that nut of 4 wires is a hot coming in, a hot going out to the next outlet or switch, and the 2 pigtails that "energize" the switches. The neutrals are either at the fixtures themselves and were never routed in your switch box, or what you think are the ground wires are your neutral (are they bare wires or white?). The ground being the metal clad sheathing of the wire that is common in older homes.