Switch Wiring Nightmare Pictures

[Southern Man]

.....
I thought he was being very generous. Many would have stopped at the above quote and told him to call an electrician who knew what he was doing. Instead he tried to correct the bad diagnosis, and in so doing, he had to assume the poster would be able to follow his logic and directions, which does not always happen. Sometimes you need to use a 2x4 to get someone's attention.

Sometime you do need a 2x4 but as a first response unless you know the guy it more often than not overkill at best.

[iminaquagmire]

Not very helpful in a DIY forum.

Why not? The poster's original premises were incorrect and he was casting aspersions on the person who had originally installed it even though the installation was correct. If he had done a proper analysis in the first place he would not have started taking other switches apart, willy nilly, and then assumed that they were also incorrect according to his faulty interpretation of what he found.

HJ hit it on the head. I mistook what I saw and got concerned. Immediately after I posted the question I realized what they did and understood why the outlets didn't work. Thing is that all of the electrical work I've done was either new work (new framing and open walls) or totally new circuits either back to the panel or in a junction box (exposed of course). I've never installed a switch with only the hot leg coming into the box because the wiring never necessitated it. I've always done it with the power going into the box then out to the load. Even my electrician brother didn't understand it at first because he only does new construction and has never had to wire anything that way either.

That said, 220/221 was right in what he said. Not about trying to impress my GF, but in that I did not know what I was doing. While I did figure it out on my own, somebody else who would have written a post like that may not have. They may have done something that would ACTUALLY have caused a fire.

I didn't really take offense to anything that was said. I understand that while the pros on this forum may not always give out the best DIY advice, sometimes its either not possible or it wouldn't do any good to the person utilizing it simply because they don't have the knowledge to. Some people may not know their limits when it comes to this stuff. I think my first post showed that I was past my knowledge of the subject.

[hj]

One problem with writing anything is that it is subject to interpretation by the reader, and that interpretation is often colored by his/her experiences or biases. Thus even the most lucid explanation can be misinterpreted and create a hazard when the reader does it the way he thinks it was presented. I once did a plumbing job for a friend who had received a very precise and accurate drawing of the drain system from the city building department. Unfortunately, he installed the piping the way he "thought" it looked like it should be, and was somewhat upset when I told him that the inspector would spend the first five minutes at the job rolling on the floor laughing and the next 5 seconds writing out a reject tag, (unless he spelled out the violations in which case it would take another five minutes).

[pudge565]

that 3rd swith is not a 3-way if it says on and off which I can see from the picture it says off it is a single pole switch.