Trying to wire the bathroom light switch, but vanity light will not come back on. There are two wires, black and red, plus a ground wire that wasn't hooked to anything originally just touching the side of the box. The black and red wires were stuck straight into the back of the switch that went out, not wrapped around the screws on the side. I am at a loss as to what to do. The red line has been dead until just recently when I got a second new switch to hook everything up to. The red wire is now currently hot after not having been so during my previous attempts.
Electrical – How to wire a bathroom light switch which has an outlet, exhaust fan, and vanity light all from same junction box
electricalwiring
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Are you in Europe? Blue means neutral there. America doesn't use blue, neutral is white or gray.
One of those wires must be "hot" for the lamp.
All the other wires are speed control of the fan. By connecting, isolating or cross connecting various wires, you get various speeds. The old switch knows how to do that.
The new receiver does not. It expects to only switch the fan on/off and "something downstream" manages speed, e.g. with a pull cord. If you want that functionality, you either need a receiver that supports all those wires, or find a way to move or add the proper speed selector switch to the fan proper.
You might be able to retain the old speed selector switch, and have it takes its power from the receiver instead of from always-hot. Then the receiver would control off/on, and the old switch would control speed. That may mean putting the receiver next to the old controller instead of up at the fan. Identify the lamp wire, and bypass that on the old switch and let the receiver control it directly. However there's a risk to that: most fan control switches force you to start the fan in "high". That's because if you start in "low", it may not have enough torque to start turning, and sit there stalled overheating the windings. It's best to use only products listed/rated for that purpose.
This is a bit more annoying than it looks (spoiler: the obvious way to wire it may not pass muster with all inspectors)
The power feed to this all comes in at box 1 (vanity light) and feeds the /2 switch loop to box 3 as well as the /2 feed to box 2. Box 2 and Box 3 are connected by a /3 cable, apparently intended to be a switch loop.
With all this, you'd think you'd be able to:
- Turn the power off, of course
- Connect the white wire from the /2 in box 2 to the white wires from the light and fan there.
- Connect all grounds together in box 2 and to a box ground pigtail (if it's a metal box)
- Connect the black wire from the /2 cable in box 2 to the white wire in the /3 cable and mark that white wire as a hot (permanent marker as you have done should be fine -- it just needs to be a permanent/indelible marking, visible from all angles).
- Connect the red wire from the /3 cable in box 2 to the blue wire from the overhead light.
- Connect the black wire from the /3 cable in box 2 to the black wire from the bath fan.
- Connect all the grounds in box 3 together.
- Connect the white wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to the HOT terminal on the fan controller after marking it as a hot.
- Connect the black wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to the 1-POLE terminal on the fan controller.
- Connect the white wire from the /2 cable in box 3 to the switch HOT terminal, again after marking it hot.
- Connect the black wire from the /2 cable in box 3 to the switch 1-POLE terminal.
- Connect the red wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to the other switch 1-pole terminal -- the Adorne parts can terminate two wires on each terminal.
- Button everything back up and turn the power on.
and have it work. In fact, it will work if you do this; however, there's a catch! This arrangement takes one switch loop feed (from the vanity light) and returns it back down two different cables (to the vanity light and to the overhead light), which can be seen as a Code violation (of the 300.3(B)/310.10(H)/300.20 complex) as it creates a large loop area that puts out stray magnetic fields in your bathroom (good for ruining the picture on that old TV you have mounted in the wall in there ;).
A more conservative approach would be to utilize a dual pole switch to break the two hot feeds simultaneously while sending the return paths back the way they came, as follows:
- Connect all the grounds in box 3 together, and to grounding (green/bare) pigtails to any switches that need them.
- Connect the white wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to two (preferably black) pigtails after marking it as a hot. One pigtail goes to the HOT terminal on the fan controller and the other goes to one side of the dual pole switch.
- Connect the black wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to the 1-POLE terminal on the fan controller.
- Connect the red wire from the /3 cable in box 3 to the other terminal on the same side of the dual pole switch as the pigtail.
- Connect the black wire from the /2 cable in box 3 to the other side of the dual pole switch.
- Connect the white wire from the /2 cable in box 3 to the other terminal on the other side of the dual pole switch.
- Button everything back up and turn the power on.
This arrangement also works, and keeps the two light switch loops neatly separated. However, Legrand does not make a two pole Adorne switch, and I do not believe there are faceplates available for the combination of an Adorne device side by side with a standard switch in a two gang box. You'd have to get a standard-form-factor (i.e. not Adorne) fan controller to do this.
Best Answer
sounds like you probably have a 14-3 wire but the red wire may not be doing anything. The black wire should be across the switch and anything on the other side of the switch will go off and on with the switch. White wire shouldn't go across any switches. On receptacles, the black wire always goes to the brass screws and the white wire always goes to the silver screws. There are two ways to connect to a switch or receptacle with 14 gauge wire: you can push it in the holes in the back or you can connect it to the screws.