Electrical Help needed...

MrNightly

Any electricians in the house?

I am adding a Fan/Light/Heat kit in one of my bathrooms and I have it all installed and working, except for one small problem. The heat is from an independent source so that's ok. The light and Fan are on the same switch, and there is another switch in the outlet that controls the vanity lights. I pulled power from the Vanity light switch for the fan/light combo. It works just perfectly, except it's dependent on the vanity light staying on.

I will take a picture and post it, but does anybody know which wire I have crossed? I know I'm really close here.

Thanks!

MrNightly

As you can see, I pulled the red incoming hot(Power) and put it into the switch in the middle (New one I added for fan/light combo). I thought that since I pulled from it before it hit the first switch it wouldn't be dependent on it.


I put all the whites together but when i tried to put all the blacks together, it was constant power to the fan/light combo... arg.

mrbigbluelight

The key here is when you said, "When I put all the blacks together, it was constant power to the fan/light combo".

The RED wire is the switched power to the fan/light combo, I think.

The REAL power wire in to the whole shebang is a black wire; a black wire that is hooked INTO the vanity light switch.

The black wire you have coming OUT OF the vanity light switch looks like you have jumpered over to the fan/light combo switch.

Thus, if the switched vanity light switch is off, no power over to the RED wire on the fan/light switch.

You need to figure out what wires are HOT coming INTO the whole shebang.

A simple voltmeter, or a $12 Lowes/HomeDepot proximity tester, will tell you that.

Report back on your findings; that is all.

ben62670

+1
You really need a tester, but I am willing to bet the black from the switch on the left that is tied into the red on the switch on the right needs to be tied into the group of blacks in the middle of the pic. There are a lot of black wires tied together in that box, and it could be a feed for another outlet, or a feed for some other lights. Be very careful. There is a possibility of having two circuits in that one box.

MrNightly

BINGO!

I have a voltmeter (2 actually) but until I got off the phone with my buddy, I didn't really even know how to use them! *Besides testing outlets to see if they are hot.... now I know that you can find a hot wire coming into a box, by holding one end against a ground and the other against a wire... brilliant!* Now, combined with MBB info, I found out that i did indeed have to hot wires coming into the box.

I pulled from the heater for the fan only, and took the light off the fan and put them all onto the Vanity light. Now, when you walk in, you can flip the first switch for lights, the second for the fan, and the third for the heater.

Brilliant!

You guys are the best! And very sharp assessment Mr Big Blue... I had the hot Black into the big mess of blacks, instead of into the switch. What a difference knowing the proper use of the tools make huh?

Cheers!

mrbigbluelight

Good advice.

Two 110v circuits doesn't necessarily mean the SAME 110v.

You might have 2 separate 110v's (different phases) which together adds up to 220v.

Test each wire to ground, figure out which ones are "Hot".
Then, measure the voltage between THOSE 2 wires.
If you get "0", they're the same phase.
If you get "220v", they're separate phases and, of course, you do



NOT

want to connect those together.