This is Peterson Electric. We are here in Arvada, Colorado. This house is built in the 60s. It does have grounds throughout the house, but the issue I am having is in the stairways going downstairs there is a 3 way switch that is not working. When people say 3 way what it means is that on one end you can control a light or several lights & at the other end of a stairway or hallway, you can control that same bank of lights. I don’t know why they don’t call it a 2 way, probably because there is 3 wires that connect a 3 way. That is called a 3 way, so the issue with this today is we had this box right here had a switch. We only had 3 wires which was a black, red & a white & that is okay if you are going to wire a dead 3 way, but this was not wired as a dead 3 way. Easiest way to do a 3 way is one side up here maybe your switch leg & downstairs would be your power. Up here what they did is just brought a 3 way up & they spliced it in this box right here & they did not have a switch leg, so I had to cut drywall about three & half feet over to this box & in here I ran my switch leg & I ran it from here to here, so now my switch leg, my new cable, is now my new common. I have my neutral right here going down & I have my two travelers which are the gold screws. On a newer switch, you will see that there are two golds & your common is your black on your newer 3 way toggle switch. Down here is my power side. As you can see, this is the power because this single pole does the basement & this power right here does the common on this side of the switch right here & then you have your two travelers on your black & red & your neutral, which was doing the light, completing yourself up here. The main mistake they made, how ever this was done. This is all black cable from the 60s & you can tell, they just forgot a switch leg at the top. We just cut it across. Another way do this if it is all brick wall & you can’t get to that & cut drywall real easily & lets say the light is real up high in the top of the ceiling. You can do a motion sensor. I found them on Amazon & they work really well. My cost is about $40 & I charge about $60 to $65. It has a little motion & it is about a 360 degrees motion detector & then it has a fluorescent. I think it is a GU 24 base bulb, fluorescent bulb that you screw in. If you go to the top of the stairway & you open the door & it will probably see you, then down here mostly likely if you mounted up there, it could see you too. There is a chance that you could step one or two steps & it wouldn’t see you. Code is that when you come to a stairway you have to at the bottom of the stair or top be able to reach over & hit a switch to turn something on that way someone doesn’t fall. Motion lights can help & what you would do is take this instead of a 3 way, you would turn it into a complete power system & you can blank it off at both sides with a blank & then power it like an outlet up there & then put in your motion & your done. The other way of also solving these is by doing a wireless switching system. I do a module at the top & a module at the bottom, they are going to be your switch modules & put a slave, a wireless switch module, hard wired up in the light & I create the light as a constant power & again blank off both sides & use these wireless switch devices, battery or 110 volt or the ones I use are neither. They go off a radio frequency band & then that can solve the stairway as well & it meets code that there is a switch at the top & bottom. It is really good if you have a stair case that comes up as a spiral of a “u” figure, you then can put in 4 switches & that would be creating your 4 or 5 way switches to do that one light. Thanks for joining us! Hope that helped you out. Have a great week!
