I just purchased a outdoor pavilion that came with an electrical package. It includes a #12 two wire plus a ground wire going into an electrical box for the on and off switch to run the fan and another #12 two wire plus ground wire going into a GFI outlet box. The GFI outlet should run constant while the switch should run when turned on.
My questions is how to correctly wire this. The power will be running off the GFI outlet.
Electrical – How to wire a gazebo
electricaloutdoorwiring
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Yes that is correct - you always want to switch the hot. Just make sure you use a switch and wire rated for 20amps.
First off, you CANNOT use #14 on a circuit wired with #12. If you do you'd have to replace the breaker with a 15A and this is simply foolish IMO. Why loose 5 potential circuit capacity amps over such an issue?
OK, you need to forget the physical orientation of the items. The fact that the receptacles are physically in between the switches is irrelevant. You can wire it this way, but not with what you have and it gets complicated.
You should re-wire the receptacles with the proper 12/2 wire from one of the switches. Then use 12/3 between the two switches and feed the other switch. The only problem with this is that all three receptacles will be switched. This does NOT seem like a convenient setup, unless of course that is exactly what you want.
You can follow this wiring scheme shown as it is the easiest for DIYer and beginners, but remember that there is no one correct way to wire things. If you Google "3-way wiring" you'll find hundreds of diagrams people have drawn with just as many ways to wire.
Just think of your receptacles as the light in this diagram and continue on to the rest.
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Best Answer
It sounds as if the cable going to the switch just requires a feed.
I am not sure how you intend to bring power to the gazebo from the main house, but basically you would wire both 12/2 cables to the #12 feed wire and wire it color for color; white to white, black to black, ground to ground.
The GFI would get wired to the LINE terminals only.
Please comment if you can add any details that might help.