Please review my wiring plan for kitchen lighting

16 years ago

This is how I plan to run the lighting in my kitchen.

The recessed lighting is already existing and on its own circuit so it is not shown.

I am showing a 14-2 wire from the main box to the first dimmer.

A 14-3 wire goes to the second dimmer and terminates.

I then have 14-2 from the first dimmer, going to each of the undercabinet lights. At the bottom of the plan, you will see double lights indicated. In this case, I have both undercabinet lights and inside cabinet lights.

Then I have one 14-2 wire from the first dimmer going to the pendent lights over the sink indicated by two circles at the bottom of the plan.

Please take a look and let me know if you think this is sensible. I know there are a number of ways to run the wires. I think this will be the best way for me, but if it won't work, I will revise the plan.

Thank you.

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Comments (9)

jmorrow
16 years ago
2 concerns:

1st is box fill. in the first dimmer you have 24cu/in worth of box fill assuming you aren't using a metal box with internal cable clamps. make sure you size box accordingly.

2nd is wattage. make sure you get a dimmer that can handle the total wattage of all lights to be dimmed
normel
16 years ago
If you are using conventional dimmers, you only need one.. the other switch will be a standard 3 way. Box fill is another problem. You can run the feed to the lights from the second switch to help with that. I would also run the pendant lights on their own switch and not with the UC lights.
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Thank you, This is the 3rd set of Maestro dimmers I have hooked up. All the other ones have worked fine up until now. I think the dimmer itself must be faulty. After looking at that wiring diagram above and looking at the wiring diagram that came with the dimmers, I think that it's fairly close to being the same. In fact, looking at my notes, I tried the wiring plan from the Maestro instructions. I think I may have a defective unit. I am going to get a replacement today to see if that fixes the problem. The bottom line is that the wiring diagram above is incorrect. If the black and white wires are switched so that the white wires go to the brass screws and the black wires go to the black screws, this will represent how I originally wired it. That seems to be in-line with both the wiring manual I have and the Maestro instructions. However, it didn't work the first time.
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old_skool
Original Author
16 years ago
The dimmer I have should be more than enough to dim all the undercabinet and in cabinet lighting. I haven't picked out the in-cabinet lighting yet, however, the undercabinet lighting is line voltage, direct wire, "Xenon" bulbs. There are 6 of these lights.

I haven't found my pendent lighting yet either, but I am looking for a low voltage setup with a built in transformer so I can wire it at line voltage and dim with a normal dimmer.

I don't really have any physical place to put an extra switch for the pendent lighting, though I understand why you would suggest that I wire it on a separate switch. It will really only need to be full blast when doing dishes, and at that point, it will be kitchen clean up time and having the undercabinet lights on full will be ideal.

I am using full size boxes for the lighting. The switch that receives the power and distributes is a 4-gang box and has a good bit of room for the wires and wire nuts.

I am using plastic boxes without cable clamps, they utilize an angled plastic piece that grabs the wire shielding and prevents it from being pulled back out of the box.

My biggest concern is verifying that I can run the setup in the fashion shown. I want to start running the wire, but I don't want to go to the trouble and have it set up incorrectly. From what I can tell from reference material, this should work.

If absolutely necessary, I could add a switch for the pendent lights over the sink and run it separately.

Once I run the wires, they are set, and I won't be able to change them.

Ideally I would run double dimmers. However, if this is not possible, I will run one 3-way dimmer and one 3-way switch.
old_skool
Original Author
16 years ago
Any further input?
hendricus
16 years ago
If one dimmer is set at the lowest light level the other dimmer will not make it brighter, so, you still have to go to the first dimmer to change the level of light. With one dimmer you know where you have to go to change the light level, with two dimmers you have a 50-50 change of catching the wrong one and then go across the room to set the correct one.
old_skool
Original Author
16 years ago
I may just have the one dimmer at the location shown in the plan where the power is being supplied and have a basic switch at the other location. I haven't decided.

However, I do have a pair of dimmers on 3-way in the basement that come with a remote control, have presets, and fade in/out. Perhaps because they are sold as a set, they have circuitry inside them to allow both locations to dim.

Either way, if I go with dual dimmers, I will use something similar to this to ensure it works.
old_skool
Original Author
16 years ago
I did see a product by Lutron at HD, that is a dual dimmer setup with saved presets, that works in a 3 way wiring and allows full dimming from both locations. It didn't have e remote which is fine because I don't need that in the kitchen.
old_skool
Original Author
16 years ago
Can I use 14-2 and 14-3 to achieve the wiring plan that I have based on my picture? I looked at a few books and this appears to be a workable solution. However, I don't want to install the wire and then find out it doesn't work.

Any input about this specific issue would be greatly appreciated.
jmorrow
16 years ago
yes