double switch wiring problem

avalanchehunter · 12-13-2009, 08:00 AM

Hello experts... I am in need of some advise regarding yet another "gift" the previous owners have left me. In this case I have a back hall light and a light in my garage that operate on the same switch even though there is a double switch installed in the box.

Ideally I would like each light to operate from its own single pole switch. My second choice is to use the current double switch but have each light operate from a separate switch. Both lights currently operate from the bottom switch.

I've attached a picture of the current wiring for your reference. Thank you in advance.

secutanudu · 12-13-2009, 09:10 AM

It's a little hard to see which wires are connected to which screw terminals in your picture. Is there a black on one screw, and a black and a red on another, and the last screw is empty? How many screws are on this switch?

If this is the case, then just move either the black or the red to the empty screw terminal to have the top switch control one light and the bottom control another. If you want to use two separate switches, you would need to splice the incoming hot wire in a nut with two new short lengths of black cable, and each of these short cables would feed a separate switch.

avalanchehunter · 12-13-2009, 10:39 AM

Thanks for the quick response. The switch has four terminals; two on each side. Currently the red wire is attached to the top left, the black wire is attached to the bottom left and the two right side terminals are open.

Note that there one black wire is currently disconnected. Where should I attached this?

Thank you.

joed · 12-13-2009, 10:54 AM

With that setup I would expect one of the lights to not work. Also do both switches need to be on for the lights to be on?
You are going to need to open the lights and tell us the wiring up there.
With you current amount of wires I would expect
1 black to be hot
1 black to be power one light
red to be power to other light.
Since one black is disconnected and both lights still operate we need to know what the wiring configuration is in the fixtures.

secutanudu · 12-13-2009, 12:19 PM

It also looks like there are only two white wires, when there should be three...one from each light, and one back to the panel.

Definitely need to know what's going on in each of the light fixtures to figure it out,

joed · 12-13-2009, 02:00 PM

Whites look fine to me. Two cables (14/2 & 14/3) would be two whites and two grounds, which is what I see.