How To Wire A 4-Way Switch System Explained (2022) | Easy DIY Step By Step Tutorial For Beginners!

on today's video i'm going to be showing you how to wire a 4-way switch stay tuned [Music] to fix this house if you're new to the channel please consider pressing the subscribe and notification bell so you can always be in tune on diys how-to videos and product reviews that i do within this channel just a quick disclaimer this video is made for educational informational and entertainment purposes only the electrical codes in my area may be different from the electrical codes in your area so always make sure you're up to date with your current electrical codes and that you have the right permits before doing any type of electrical work and also if you're uncomfortable working with electricity please please hire a certified qualified electrician okay and also electricity is very very dangerous so make sure that you always turn off the power from your circuit breaker before working with any type of electricity and all my full disclaimer is on the description down below with that being said let's get to the video you're probably asking why do we even need a four-way switch well it comes very handy when you have one light fixture inside a room and you want to control it on three different entrances like say one is from a garage entrance one is coming from our bedroom one is coming from our kitchen let's say you want to enter the garage and you want to turn on the light from there okay you turn on the light and then you want to go get something to eat but you don't want to leave the light on so you go to the kitchen you want to turn it off from there you got somebody coming from the bedroom and they want to turn on the light and so forth you can control the light switch on different entrances which makes it convenient so you don't have to walk all the way across the room to turn off the switch and can also add more switches along the way with it you don't you're not limited to just three switches if you want to add more switches you can just add more between the three-way switches on each end adding four-way switches along the way okay so you have all those options and again i'll show you how to wire it and all the tools that i use on the next step here are all the tools that we're going to be using for this project start off with the key parts which are the switches you need two three-way switches when i mean by three-way switch is you mean it means that you have one black and two travelers okay so the black one is called the common terminal or a com term terminal these switches are you know they're the same and they don't have an on and off on the switch themselves because they can be left on top off bottom off top on bottom on it doesn't matter which orientation it is it all depends on how you leave it at the end they have two travelers and one common and one ground so you need two three-way switches and you need one so depending on how many rooms you want to control if you can have more than one four-way switch for in this project since we're only going to be controlling in three locations we're gonna be using only one okay so for the four-way switch it's a little different you see you have two blacks and two um brass terminals and you can see that there is no uh indication on all on and off position you can see that i don't use wire nuts i love using these weigo wire connectors they come in various ports so this one is a three port they're very easy to use i love using them they you just pretty much open up the lever so insert your wire and then close it that easy you can reuse these again all the tools that i use in this video i'll leave it on the description down below i love using this volt claw this is one of my go-to tools there's so many uses for these you can either when you for here's for example when you insert an entire j box you can twist wire so you can position it in the way that you want you can pull wire with the hook there's a part here where you can twist the wire for to make a hook to enter to the terminals another push feature here the screwdriver that i like to use is this dope double switch blade you can pretty much switch it up to either a flat head or a phillips and once you push it in it locks in place it's by clean tools um yeah you pretty much just twist it and it releases and then you can push it in and it locks in place very nice it is insulated grip and i never work on electrical without using a voltage detector this one's by milwaukee again i'll leave a similar product down below but you you won't when you turn off the power from your breaker you want to double check that there is no power going to that line and this is just a reassurance and saves my life every time so highly highly recommend you get a voltage detector long nose pliers wire cutters and then you're going to need a utility knife to cut off those insulated wiring okay those cables and i'm not going to show you how to use this today but if you need to to feed wire through studs through your ceiling through your basement i like using this fish tape again you can use this to pretty much you know it's a long piece of cable that you can use to help pull wire through studs and whatnot very easy to use all you got to do is take your cable wrap it around here tape it and then you can use that to pull this and fish it through your studs or your ceiling or your basement before i go tell you what wiring i'm going to be using today let's go over the j boxes first you can see there's there's three different types j boxes they're pretty much all the same function this one's for new work you can see that because it has nails i didn't drive them all the way in because it's just a mock-up if you have all work which means that you have drywall already installed you can use this adjustable old work it's pretty much just screws into the studs from the inside another type of old work where this one right here you've seen this probably a lot where you can just locate this anywhere on the drywall and you can it pretty much just sandwiches to the drywall and yeah you can position it anywhere let's get to the wire the wire gauge that we're using today is a 14 gauge wire so 14 gauge right here 14 2 i'm going to mention 14 2 a lot 14 3 when i say 14 2 it means that there's two wires and one ground so that's one neutral one hot one ground when i say 14 3 i i mean by that is we're using three wire with ground that means there's a hot black hot red and also a neutral white and one ground okay but they're all 14 gauges usually when you're working with light fixtures like so um they're you're going to use a 14 gauge but you can use a 12 gauge as well again the power that works that's coming from here is going to be a 15 amp it's coming from a 15 amp breaker or whichever 15 amp power source that you're using we're using 15 amp switches you can use 12 2 wire if you're if it's coming from a 20 amp breaker okay you can't you can't use a 14 gauge wire like these on coming from a 20 amp it's just not safe it's gonna heat up your wiring if you are going to be using a 15 amp breaker you can use a 12 2 wire which is a 12 gauge okay so i know that might sound confusing i'll leave a chart right here for you go pause the video so you know which wiring you can do but what i didn't state on this label is that you can use 12 2 on a 15 amp breaker okay you can always go up on size just not go down okay so just to be safe go 15 amp 14 gauge 20 amp 12.2 gauge okay so hopefully that makes sense if you have any comments regarding wiring please comment down below and i'll be glad to answer them so i like to label the wiring so we don't get confused again this is where gonna be our power source is and we're gonna be using a 14 to 1422 wire with ground wire this is coming from a 15 amp power source we're gonna go through our first j box this is where gonna be our first switch is located okay and we're gonna leave about eight inches of free wire so right when you feed that we're gonna pretty much take out the insulation okay and then pull off the sheathing black neutral and ground this is going to be where our three-way switch is going to be and then for our four-way switch see this there's three boxes your four-way switch is always going to be in the middle of the three-way switches it's going to be three-way switches on each end and on the middle whichever how many four-way switches you can have as many four-way switches between the three-way switches you always have your four-way switch between the three-way switches the three-way switch to the 4-way to the 4-way to the 3-way we're going to be using a 14-3 gauge wire start off with the switches now with when you're doing the switches you always want a pigtail when i mean by pigtail you take a piece of the same gauge wire about say six inches and you're going to loop it and feed it onto whichever terminal that you wish in this case we're going to be going and putting it on the ground wire so in all the switches it's good practice to put your pigtails first before putting them on the j box so that you don't struggle later on and haven't having all that trouble putting it just makes your job a little easier it's a good practice first we're going to use our wire stripper and you're going to be relieving about 5 8 on each wire okay so if you don't know what 5 8 is if you look on your 3-way switch there's actually a gauge notch right there that you can use this as reference very easy to use all you got to do is put your wire right right up against that notch and you can see that that's the length of how much copper that you need to strip this is gonna be our power source this wire is gonna be coming going to the four-way switch this is actually what's gonna make the loops feed it through about three-quarter three-quarter the way and then you just turn it now take your first three-way switch like what you see here and you see where the com terminal is calm common terminal the black terminal and you're gonna take the wire from your power source the hot wire from your power source and you're gonna hook it to that black com terminal okay so when you're hooking something or where you're attaching this you always want to go in a clockwise position sure that you tighten this really well because you don't want these popping out of there we're going to be going to the 14 three wire going to the four-way switch so on the red okay on the red we're i'm going to be feeding it onto the i'm gonna call this terminal traveler terminal number one travel terminal number two okay the red one i'm gonna be fitting it on traveler terminal number one first like so the hot wire from 14 3 and we're gonna feed that on traveler terminal number two to make it easier let's start with the grounds first i'm going to be using my wego three-way lever okay like so open them up to make it easier let's start with the grounds first i'm going to be using my weigo three-way lever okay like so open them up now take all your ground wires now sometimes you have to take your ground wire and relocate them and re-feed them in different directions you don't want your ground wire going or your wires going in crisscross motions try to make it as neat as possible like so all the grounds are connected okay now we're gonna take neutrals put them together there you go quick recap we have our 14 to two wire with ground power source going to the first j box the neutral of the power source is connected with the neutral of the 1433 wire with ground going to the second j box the black wire which is the hot wire from our power source is going to the com terminal of the three-way switch which is the black right there take all the ground from your power switch the 14-3 the 14 2 connect them all together red and the black of the 14 3 going into here which the black wire is going to traveler terminal number two on the right side and then you have the red from the 14 3 going to travel traveler terminal number one on the left side with that being said let's go to uh the box for our four-way switch which is going to be j box number two and then just pull off the sheathing moving on to our four-way switch again always make sure that it's in the top top side up the only wires that we're going to loop here is the hot and the red like so so the red 14 3 is going to be going to the right side brass terminal black is going to be going to the left side of the four-way switch tighten that down let's put the neutral and the ground at the side at the moment we're gonna feed a wire a fourteen three three wire with ground come going to this box and go into our last switch which is the three way right here okay like so [Music] see notice how all the red is just to make it uniform i'm trying to make it all the red on one side all the black on the other side the black of that is going on the top left okay so notice let me separate this so you can get a clearer picture see this the black and the red is from this y right here going to the top left and right and then see this this wire coming from the bottom is going to the bottom which is left and right there so you don't get confused and you can kind of see where the orientation is going and we're not all over the place i want to try to make this as neat and as organized as possible for you to understand so that first 14 3 3 wire with ground it's neutral is connected with the neutral on the 14 14 3 wire coming from our last three-way switch okay so combine those get all the ground wires out of the way so the ground wire from our switch ground wire from our 14-3 and our ground wire from our 14-3 are all connected together now we are going to be going and taking this 14 3 new wire feeding it now to our last j box for our next three-way switch to introduce our last switch which is the 14-3 so you have the two travelers and one common and you have the ground we got our pigtail already installed first let's do traveler terminal number two which is the black going on the right side we're gonna take our red and put it on traveler terminal number one now for the neutral we're going to leave that open and we're going to leave the ground wires open because we are going to introduce our last 14 2 2 wire with ground from the light switch fixture itself to this j box like so this is going to be labeled 14 2 2 wire with ground the only one that we're going to be looping for the newly installed wire from this 14 2 we're only going to be looping the black hot wire okay so the other wires are going to be left to the side and then we're going to loop this one now to the common terminal right on the black let's get to all the easy wires now we're going to take all our ground wires in this box ground wire from the switch ground wi-fi to 14-3 ground wire from the 14-2 and we are all going to connect that let's put that on the side lastly we have all our neutral wires this neutral wires from our 14 3 and then neutral wire from the 14.2 connect those like so okay easiest connection very straightforward just take all your neutrals okay connect them together take all your ground connect them together and then take your hot wire and then connect them together very straightforward and let's do that right now that pretty much completes the circuit let's do one final recap before we turn this and shove all those switches back to their j boxes let's go to the final recap and let's break it down from the power this is coming from a 15 amp power source whether it comes from a breaker or from another type of power source that you might have go into our first j box going to our first three-way switch okay the power source from that is pretty much the hot wire that's going to the com terminal on the bottom and then you have our traveler wire from our 14 3 going from the second coming from the second j box that red wire is going to travel at terminal number one on the left black wire from that is coming from going to our traveler terminal number two on the right side top and then we're taking all our neutral wires from that power source and from this 14 3 taking the neutral putting them together putting all the ground and hooking them all up together pretty straightforward now we're moving up to the wire 14 3 we're going to take our all our neutrals pretty much just to make it simple take all the neutrals from that 14 3 go into this j box this 14 3 go in there take all the neutrals connect them take all the ground wires connect them and then our power source or then our 14 3 from our first lights uh switch right there the black wire is going to be on the bottom the red wire is going to be on the bottom right okay and then you have our 14 3 the red's going to be on the top red red all in the same side and the black is going to be on the top left black on the same side okay straight forward all right let's move on to the line four team three our last three-way switch right here okay we're mimicking what the the wiring we did here so the red was on the left the black is on the right on that four on the three-way switch the red is on the left the black is on the right on the traveler terminals okay and then under 14 2 last wire going to the light fixture itself that black wire from that cable is going to the calm terminal on the bottom of the three-way switch take all your ground put it together take all your neutrals put them together and on the last one for our light fixture white black ground okay notice how this neutral wire is just connected all you know together on this circuit it is not going to any switches it is a floating connecting neutral wire all throughout okay so that completes that loop all right if you have any questions as of now leave it in the comments section i'm gonna shove this all in turn on the power and let's see how these light switches work okay you can see that there is power now feeding through this line now let's turn off the first switch let's say that we're entering the room on one side of the door light turns on okay let's say that where another person was coming in and they want to turn it off on the other side another one's coming in from the other side okay you can see that you can pretty much mix match whatever way you're going either way you turn flip the switch they turn on and off and this is for different entrances you can turn it on and off whichever way you want now again if there's many entrances that you have and you want to put more than one switch or more than three switches you can always add more four-way switches in between the three-way switches so once again friends that's how you wire a four-way switch it's not that hard again if you follow this example or you follow this instructions you won't go wrong again working with electrical is very very dangerous so be very careful if you are um un uncertain on how to do this and you're kind of on the edge please hire a professional certified electrician i hope you found big value to this video if you did please hit that big thumbs up press the subscribe notification bell and i'll see you on the upcoming videos thank you so much have a good day [Music]

Channel: Fix This House

Views: 153,853

Keywords: electrical outlet, outlet wiring, electrical receptacle, junction box, pig tail wiring, electrical how to, electrical box, fix this house, home renovation, home DIY, DIY electrical, home electrical basics, electrical install 101, electrical for beginners, electrical plug, voltage detector, 120v outlet, hot wires, grounding wires, neutral wires, duplex receptacle, double gang switch, double gang j-box, How to wire a 4-way switch system explained, 4 way switch

Id: voYysilRxRU

Length: 23min 33sec (1413 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 15 2022