How To Wire A Light Switch With Red Black And White Wires

A friend was replacing a light fixture in his bathroom and ran into something confusing a red wire in the electrical box along with the usual black and white wires.

How to wire a light switch with red black and white wires. Remember black and red wires are always hot meaning they are source wires that carry power from the electric service panel to a destination such as an outlet or a light. If there is an extra red wire you should get a reading of 120 volts when you touch the terminals of the tester to the red and white wires. And when he hooked up his new light fixture he did what i would expect the majority of homeowners to do he connected the white wire on the fixture to the white wires in the box. A single pole single throw switch such as a light.

You can t always rely upon the color of the insulation to guarantee what a wire actually does but there is often a general convention as follows. The hot wire in a 120 volt residential ac circuit usually is coated with black insulation while the return or neutral wire is white. A three way switch is different. Hot wire with live 120 vac all the time.

However a black wire can never be used as a neutral or ground wire or for any purpose other than. White wires augmented with red or black tape or markings are used as hot. Black white and bare. This is a typical wiring setup for a 3 way light switch with black white red and ground wires.

How to wire an outlet with red black and white wires before you make any wire connections to the outlet you must break or remove the bonding plate between the two brass terminals. This type of switch lets you turn the light off or on from more than one place in the room. The wire that will be hot when the circuit is completed to your light usually black traveler. I ve decided to put this faq together to help those with questions about installing ge 3 way switches.

Review the diagram below for basic three way wiring instructions. The hot wire from the breaker usually black neutral. The main wire that will go from one switch to the other should have 4 wires total black white ground and red. Test the wires in the ceiling box with a voltage tester.

The most common home wiring uses non metallic sheathed cable with three wires in it. The return wire for circuits usually white load. The ground wire also connects to the switch but the white wire gets spliced to the circuit neutral wire and bypasses the switch. Here is our video on how to wire a 3 way light switch.

In existing 3 way wiring this wire toggles hot between two.