I have 2 wire coming into a box with a switch, 3 wire going to a light, and 3 wire continuing to a box with a second switch. When everything is connected, the 15 amp breaker immediately trips. I believe the problem is a short somewhere in the circuit. I wired the entire house myself, but had an electrician inspect everything, get an inspection from the city, and he was supposed to wire the last handful of circuits to the breaker. Well, one out of the two breakers he didn't wire has the problem described above...go figure.

How do I tell where the short is (if that is indeed the problem)? I know how to use a voltmeter and I have a toner. If the breaker trips right away, how do I figure out which wire has the short?

I'm pretty sure there is a way to bypass the shorted wire if one of my two 3 wire segments has the short. How do I go about this after locating the problem?

Thanks for your help.

 

Are all these 'cables' in the same junction box, eg- one of your 3-way switches?

One 14/2 incoming that has the power, one outgoing 14/3 to the light and one outgoing 14/3 to the other 3-way switch? If so, did you hook everything up or did the electrician?

If you wired it yourself, you might have tied the white of the 14/3 leading to the second switch in with the 14/2's white. You should backfeed either the 14/2's black or the switchleg (14/3 black or red to the light) down the 14/3's white leading to the second switch.

Don't know if that's your issue or not. Would probably help if you were to clarify your setup.

EDIT- Oh. Sorry. You said you wired it yourself. Did you run 14/3 to the light so you could have a paddle fan there?

Also, you don't "bypass" a shorted wire. You need to find the problem and correct it.

 

explain how everything is connected in the box at the first switch, at the box at the light and at the second switch.

you should have (i'll ignore the ground wire for this explanation)

1st switch; one wire coming in to the switch (black if NM cable) and the white connected to the white on the 3 wire cable going to the light box. The other 2 wires in the 3 wire cable connected to the light switch on the "traveller" terminal.

at the box, the white wire from first switch connected to the neutral connection of the light, nothing else.

the other 2 from the first switch to 2 of the wires going to the second switch, nothing else. The 3rd wire from the second switch to the hot wire connection to the light.

2nd switch; the 2 wires from the 1st switch to the "traveller" terminals on the switch and the 3rd wire on the 3rd terminal screw.

 

I appreciate your help. So here's what happened: the electrician had the incoming and outgoing wire backwards. When he wired the box for the rough inspection, the reds were tailed an nutted and hot white and black were tailed and nutted. The only problem was they were the wrong damn ones. Thanks again for your help.

Jack