I'm Mike with family handyman and today
we're gonna be talking about how to wire
a three-way switch a 3-way switch is a
little bit more complicated than a
single pole switch but I'm gonna show
you how to make it easy so you can do it
yourself now before digging into any
wires we want to make sure that there's
no power to any of the light switches or
the lights that we're gonna be working
with so find the circuit that those are
on and turn it off now some common
situations where you might find a
three-way switch would be at the bottom
and the top of your stairs or in a space
that has multiple entrances like your
garage inside and outside the garage now
the three-way switches operate one light
so you can turn them on or off from
either location now there's quite a bit
of wires going on here and to avoid any
confusion you might want to label them
so label this one power coming in this
way right here is the common between the
two switches and this way right here
goes to the light first strip all the
wires that you're going to be working
with next attach all the ground wires in
the first switch
now a three-way switch is a little bit
different than a single pole switch in
that it's got an extra terminal called
the common terminal we'll get to that in
a second but first we want to connect
the ground
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then attach the black wire from the
power coming in to the common terminal
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now you're going to connect the neutral
wire from the power coming in to the
neutral wire in the common cable between
the two switches now you're going to
connect the red wire and the black wire
from the cable between the two switches
to the travel air terminals one on this
side and one on the other side
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now that switch one is connected you can
install it into the box
now that's switch one is complete we use
the same type of switch for switch two
it's the same 3-way switch we need to
make sure though that the black wire
going to our light is attached to our
common terminal but first just like the
first switch we're going to start with
the ground wires we gather the grounds
and we gather the neutrals just like
before
attach the ground wire to the switch now
pay attention here this is where the
black wire from the light gets attached
to the common terminal then the black
and the red wire on the cable between
the two switches gets attached to the
traveler terminals on either side of the
switch
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install the switch in the box and then
it's time to install the light now
you're ready to make the connections at
your light fixture ground the ground hot
- hot neutral - neutral
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now you can flip the circuit back on and
when you come to the bottom of the
stairs you can turn the light on and
when you get to the top you can turn it
off
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