Hi, just bought my first home. Some problems.

First, the light in the kitchen is controlled by 2 switches. One in kitchen, one in dining room. If switch in dining room is off, then the one in the kitchen doesn't work at all. So it's a guessing game of figuring out which switch we used to turn the light off last. If we turned it off in the dining room, we have to turn it on in the dining room. If we turned it off in the kitchen, it can get turned on anywhere. Ugh! Can this be fixed?

Second - The chandelier in the staircase has a switch at the bottom of the staircase to turn it on and off. There is a switch at the top of the staircase, which controls nothing. I DO see a covered-up ceiling mount for a light fixture next to the new chandelier. So I think the switch at the top of the staircase controls that, but there's nothing plugged into that socket so the switch is useless. Needless to say, this is an annoyance, to not be able to turn the light off once I go upstairs (without going back downstairs again.) Can this be fixed? Can that upstairs switch be re-routed to the new chandelier that they obviously installed after that switch was put into the house?

Third - In the finished basement there is a switch that appears to control nothing. I checked if it was tied to any outlets (like for a lamp) but it's not. How can I check if this switch does nothing and can be removed? I also have another switch (but it's a round turning dimmer type switch) also in the finished basement that seems to control nothing.

Fourth. More kind of along the lines of the third question. We have a panel here with 3 round dimmer switches on it, not just singles by themselves. 2 of them work the lights, the first one does nothing at all, seemingly. Is it common for people to buy panels with 3 switches on it when they only plan on hooking up 2 of the switches to do anything? LOL. We actually have two of these circumstances in the house, one upstairs too.

Fifth - when washer and dryer are both on at same time, the flourescent light in the laundry room flickers on and off. They WERE plugged into some cheap 1980's looking circuit breaker, that itself just plugged into the wall. It said 20amps on that thing. It was actually circuit breaking, and would trip, and the washer and dryer would both shut off mid-cycle. I just removed it and plugged the washer and dryer into a 3-way, into another GCFI outlet. No more washer and dryer shutting off, but the light in the laundry room still flickers. Come to think of it, the lights in most of the house tend to flicker every couple of seconds or so too, but not as bad as the flourescent light in the laundry room.

Sixth and final. The hallway to all the bedrooms has no wall outlets. It's a really big hallway and annoying to not have an outlet in it to hook up vacuum cleaner without extension cord. Ugh. Not a top priority, I'm just wondering how hard it would be to install a new outlet without hiring an electrician. I'm just talking strictly electrical, nothing else. My dad is a contractor who does home repair but he does not do electricial at all. So he has no problem cutting into the walls and doing that type of thing.

Thanks!

 

First concern is your description sounds as if the previous home owner with no knowledge of proper wiring practices understood the circuitry. My first recommendation is did you have an electrical inspection prior to prior to purchase? You may need to go back to the inspector which was contracted. Secondly if you have no knowledge of wiring and what it will do, you need to find a reputable contractor and troubleshoot your home circuits. Understand, I have seen some ugly DYI jobs which were unsafe or on the verge of a fire hazard. (ex. Long neutral).

If you want to have a better understanding of typical circuity, you can find on-line typical of the link below. For example if an installer used the common instead of the line connection, the end user will experience such problems as you have stated. Or possibly you just have a faulty 3way switch. To troubleshoot a circuit problem as described, one would need to kill all power fed to that circuit. (Basically isolate the hot lead.) Then use a volt meter to confirm no power is present. Then follow with a continuity or Ohm meter to trace out and label each wire.


Installing A 3-way Switch With Wiring Diagrams - The Home Improvement Web Directory

Safety note: All it takes is the power required for a 40W bulb to stop a heart. In other words if you have no proper training, find someone that does.

 

The kitchen switch problem on the staircase is a wire is in the wrong place on one of the screws. If you tell the number and colors of wires in both switch boxes we can get this figured out. It may take more than one attempt. This may apply to the stair lighting also, but the additional box may have something to do with it also.

Did you check both halves of the receptacles to see if the switch did anything? Sometimes only one half is switched.

The dimmer might be bad or the bulb could be burned out. Do you have any lighting that does not work? You can temporarily replace the dimmer with a regular switch to see if the wiring does something. It would be strange to have a switch for no reason.

The laundry issue could be a loose connection.

A receptacle in the hallway should not be that hard. Perhaps you have a receptacle on the other side of the wall that would be easy to tap into. This could not be a bathroom receptacle tho.

 

Well it doesn't appear to go to anything. I plugged a lamp in all outlets in the room and tried that third dimmer dial and nothing appeared to get dimmed. Also the single dimmer dial in the office area appears to not go to anything (I hope) because I also plugged lamp into all outlets in the office area and nothing was dimmed. But it would suck if it did go to the computers and decided to work, and my computers got dimmed... probably would get fried because not enough voltage to the power supply.


Laundry, not a loose connection. All cables are plugged in tight. Could maybe the circuit it on not be enough amps to power both the washer and dryer in the laundry room? Because the hot water tank (gas fired) and my boiler (also gas fired) should also probably be on the same circuit that the washer and dryer are on, I would think. Maybe it's overloading the circuit? I'll check and see what amps the circuit is and let you know

 

Explain "plugged in tight". Do you mean the wires to the receotacle are inserted into holes in the back of the receptacle?

I would think a conventional gas WH would not be plugged in to anything but gas. Do you mean a circulation pump for hot water? Why do you think the boiler is on the circuit? It shouldn't be.

Do you mean a GFCi?

 

By plugged in tight I mean the cables to the outlet.

The boiler I'm just assuming is on the circuit because it uses electricity to circulate the water and I only have one circuit labled "washer dryer / laundry room."

That thing, might be a gfci, I don't know. It was a white box with about a 6' cord coming from it that went into the outlet. It had a red reset button on it. It looked really old.

 

Yes but what I'm asking is are they back stabled*, back wired**, or under screws. The first has a higher failure rate then the last two.

*Back Stabbed: Inserted into holes in the back of the receptacle.
**Back wired: Inserted under pressure plates tightened by a screw.

 

Should I turn off the circuit breaker to take the switch cover off and take a picture?

 

Yes.

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I think the OP is assuming the connections are good just looking at the cord connections at the receptacles and ignoring the possibly loose connections at the devices in the boxes.

A dimmer is prohibited from controlling receptacles.

 

Gotta be safe to say these dimmers do nothing then. Because if they don't control any receptacles, they certainly don't control any lights that are built-in.