I know, I know. There’s a new one every day. But the others I’ve seen aren’t quite the same as the wiring I’m working with.
Both existing switches have the same wires in the same positions. Two black on the right side of the switch, one labeled “common” and the other screw is unlabeled. The left side has a white wire going to the green screw and a red wire going to another unlabeled screw.
I made an educated guess and wired the GE switches thusly:
Primary - Common black wire to load, other black wire to line. White wire to neutral. Red wire to traveler.
Aux - White wire to neutral. Red wire to traveler. Two black wires nutter together.
Now, this APPEARS to be working. But I’d really like some confirmation before I close up the boxes and potentially burn my house down.
So you want us to guess what your wires are by the description above?
And you have already made a “educated guess” and wired it up?
First: guessing is never the right way to tackle an electrical issue.
Second: Having someone else also take a guess isn’t any better.
The right way would have been to put a meter on each wire and figure out what is what. Then we could have helped.
Since it’s working we can all GUESS that something must be right and it’s very likely everything is right, but that’s only another GUESS.
I also saw an “APPEARS” in there to, which is just another “GUESS”
We would love to help, but we really need more into to be of any help.
Total agreement here. If you can tell us with 100% certainty that you have identified the LINE, LOAD, NEUTRAL and TRAVELER wires in each switch box, then we can tell you how to wire in the switch properly and safely. Not a wire color, not how it was wired this way before, but the true purpose of each wire in the box.
I tell this to people every day when they call and say I have a 2 blacks, a white one, one green, two purples and an orange! Funny story - A fellow called me one time and said he had a different color for each room, appears the electrician he hired wanted to color code the rooms lol. Colors do not matter, they change with every electrician. Please test your wires first so you know what they do, then and only then can you wire them in properly and safely.