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Electrical Wiring

simple Ceiling light boxes- wiring mess -Help-

bentgrassbrother

14 years ago

New home wiring was setup for 2 kitchen light fixtures. In my case, 2 pendant lights. Suspended from the ceiling.

1 Separate switch.

One of the 2 capped ceiling boxes has a white/black and ground.. The other box has (2) sets of white/black and ground ! ?? in that box- One set of w/b/green gave my power tester light a bright light ÂÂ¨ and the other --barely dim. That light now works.!

BUT- The other box with 1 set b/w/green will NOT show power at all.- Nothing.!

Are the boxes in parallel or somehow and I using the wrong b/w/green wires causing the 1 box to Not work?

Or did the electrician mess it all up.. ? :-(

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Comments (4)

Billl
14 years ago
A typical setup would be for the box closest to the switch to have a set of wires coming in and a set of wires going out. The farther ceiling box would have only a set of wires going in. The set of wires coming "out" of the first box go "in" to the second.

In the first box, the black wire in should be connected to the black going out and the black for the fixture. Same for the white and green/copper. If you don't connect the wires coming in and out of the first box, you don't get power to the second.
bentgrassbrother
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks Bill that make sense -- (you have my layout down perfectly) but since ceiling is IN THE WAY..how can I connect those 'OUT' wires to the second box. ???
Looks like the electrician messed up huh?
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You should first use a simple electrical tester to be sure there is no power to the fixture since replacing the fixture might also solve the problem. Do the same at the switches to rule out a problem at the service panel. In a conventional 3-way switch configuration the third wire (red) runs between the two switches even if it takes the long way through the fixture box. There are always 3 wires to each switch. If the master dimmer switch is an X-10 type that doesn't require a neutral, the auxiliary (slave) switch can be connected with 2 wires. This is a very complicated subject and virtually impossible to discuss online because there are so many ways this kind of circuit can be configured although there are probably people on the electrical forum that could make some pretty good guesses. I never rely on guesses. Save yourself a lot of trouble by hiring an electrician or if you have to do it yourself, turn off the power, label the wires carefully and take the old switches to an electrical supply house for replacement. Don't go to a big box store and don't imagine you are going to understand the circuit well enough to make substitutions on your own.
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Hey brick, nice to see you over here and thanks for the great advice. I had gotten a plaster ring so it was good to know I was on the right track. It seemed to me to make sense to enlarge the box, but I always wonder if a pro would hit me over the head with linesman's pliers and call me a dufus every time I try to "innovate" like that! yes, I know when in doubt call a pro, but for a switch replacement I really wanted to go it on my own. I'm still working on those NEC tables; I found one online with a free one-day trial so I'm going to wait until I open up another problematic box and look everything up at once while I've got the free trial. Bus driver, thanks for the tip about the wire mold. Since I got the bigger box in I'll stick with that, but it's nice to know it exists. Another one for the bag of tricks. I did not appreciate running into this problem at all; the power to the circuit had to be left off for hours while I ran around getting more boxes and tools. If I were a pro working on a fixed-price job, I'd be cheesed at losing money because something took so much longer than expected. On the other hand a pro would be prepared for the contingency and it would have gone from a 15 minute job to a 30 minute job. For me, it went from minutes to hours. But I'm sure it's not the last time I run into this problem, so I'm glad I've got it figured out. Thanks all, great forum. Really liked the thread about the guy running power out to his shed--now THAT is definitely a job I would not tackle on my own. But I am going to look at how the power is run out to my garage. I bet it was a hack job and will need to be replaced. We are slowly replacing a lot of the wiring in this old house. (Don't even ask me about how the attic fan was wired, scary!) But at least we had no K&T. And we've got arc faults on all the bedroom circuits, so I sleep a little better at night.
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Billl
14 years ago
It sounds like the electrician did everything correct. The "out" wire is going to the second box. If you could see through the ceiling, you would see the "out" wire from the first box run straight over to the second box as the "in".

What you need to do is to attach the light properly. In the box with just 1 set of wires, all you need to do is connect the light fixture - black to black, white to white, ground to ground. Each nut will have 2 wires under it. In the box with 2 sets of wires, you need to connect 2 existing blacks to the black from the fixture all together, connect all the whites together, and connect all the grounds together. In the box with 2 sets of wires, each wire nut will have 3 wires in it.

If you are going to be doing this work yourself, I would highly recommend you hit the library or bookstore and pick up a basic wiring book. That will give you examples of the common wiring techniques you will likely find in your home. Also, it would be a good idea if you could find someone who has a little electrical experience help you with the first couple of connections. It isn't rocket science, but an hour working with someone who knows what they are doing is worth 10 hours spent on a website.
bentgrassbrother
Original Author
14 years ago
Thanks AGAIN Bill - It worked just as you said... I actually fixed 2 problems after finding out how to do it from you.
thxs Bent bro

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