re: help diagnosing electrical problem and possible solution

So we went ahead and tied power from the right Romex and gave power to all three switches. It caused the breaker to immediately go out.

Only thing I noticed that stood out and bothered me was that both sets of ground wires were wired together. I have no fooled with it anymore and decided to just let the RIGHT switch (the one that powers the room) work properly and see if Mrs. BTB's grandpa can check out what might be the issue.

I still need to assemble the new flood lights before I do anything else, but again, I still have no power going into the LEFT and MIDDLE switches, so I'm not sure why giving them power would've flipped my breaker. I am just taking a guess that the red and black are strictly two sets of hot wires to be used in a weird way that doesn't require a three way switch, but I can be totally wrong. It is an extremely goofy setup.

Not an electrician, but looks like the right romex is the power feed. Black wire is the hot. Left romex goes to fixture, for instance ceiing fan. Black wire to the fan. Red (middle switch) to the light powered by black jump over. Right switch doesn’t make sense. The white should connect to white wire on middle switch not connected to switch

This is assuming a fan existed in this room which i don't think it did. We did a lot of physical and cosmetic updates but the switches and Romex appear to be original from the late 60s.

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To get power fed to a separate switch, the hot wire was partially stripped midway on the wire, wrapped around one switch, and the end of the same wire wrapped around the second switch.

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This is not how I like to wire switches but there is nothing incorrect about it.



The 12/3 is being used as a hot(black) and 2 switch legs(red and white). Is there any way to get to the top of that wall to trace that cable? There has to be another cable supplying hot and neutral for this circuit that is spliced in somewhere.

The RIGHT switch had a wire wire with a half arse black stripe wrapped around. It quite possibly could've been a ceiling fan in there but the only thing there is now is a light bulb attached to a junction box, not even an case around the bulb.

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There's only one hot and it's the cables on the right.

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There is only 1 wire that has voltage on it. You need to get a voltage meter to do a proper check on these circuits.


I am telling you how those switches are wired. This was done to keep from having so many connections in that switch box. There is no need to bring a neutral to that box if it is not needed.

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There's only one hot and it's the cables on the right. From my previous photos, there is a red wire coming out of the ceiling along with another black wire to one of the flood lights, while there is no red wire coming from the other flood light.

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I think he meant that the black coming into your mystery switches should be hot. That's the only way the switch makes sense.

When you say you tried to power up the mystery switches and it flipped the breaker, did you disconnect the black 3 wire and replace it with the black you know is hot? And not have both of those blacks connected together, right?

If that still tripped the breaker, I'd imagine that you have some bad connections in whatever junction the three wire goes to.


You have to just start opening up those ceiling boxes--or abandoned wall/ceiling boxes -- until you find out where the 3 wire goes. Remember that you may have live power in any of those boxes that the black in the three wire should be connected to.

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I am curious because I did mention that the white (neutral) going to the switch with an already live hot wire was wrapped with a makeshift black stripe around the cable.

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Forgive me if I'm sating anything you already get but you don't have neutrals in that box.

The white on your working switch is the switched power not a neutral. Constant power comes into the switch via the black and switched power can go out or not through the white. The neutral wire along with the feed wire are going from the panel/previous junction directly to the light and the 2 wire in your box just splices that power feed to divert it to through the switch.

The mystery switches are wired the same way and should be doing the same thing but for some reason -- maybe the critter that's responsible for all that pine straw in the box -- the black isn't connected to power at the light boxes.


When you tested it, did you have both of the blacks in your box (live feed and 3 wire) connected together?

I had both neutrals tied together when I trapped the breaker

UPDATE:

I'm aware the white wire is not a neutral, I just keep calling it that because that's what I'm used to.

Yes, sorry aware of this now. Going to try and tackle this later today and see what is up.

So I can run two different hots to the same switch and have no issues? Because that's what is currently going on with that switch and it being able to power the room light.

I'm still going to pull down the junction box and see what is inside it.