Turn the light switch (not the circuit breaker, but the light switch) to the “off” position, and remove the canopy from your light fixture until ALL of the wires are exposed.If you see only three conductors coming from the ceiling (i.e., a black/hot, a white/neutral, and a bare/ground), then you DO NOT have a switch leg, and this post pertains to your wiring. Turn the circuit breaker off to the room you’re working in, and remove the canopy from your light fixture until the wires are exposed and clearly visible.You can determine if you have a switch leg in a couple of ways:
#WIRE MULTIPLE LIGHTS ONE SWITCH INSTALL#
BUT, you do need to know if your switches and lights are wired this way before you even do so much as swap out a light fixture or install a ceiling fan. It over-complicates things, and I never wire switches and lights that way. I’m not going to get into the details of how that’s wired. With this configuration, the wire from the power source comes into the junction box where the light is installed, and then a “switch leg” goes from the light to the light switch. This other (and more complicated) way of doing things uses what’s called a switch leg. But there is another way - what seems to be an old school way of doing things - that is often seen in older homes. What I’m going to show you in this post is the easiest and (in my humble opinion) the most streamlined way of wiring a switch to a light fixture. But even if you do, this information in this post still might not pertain to your switch because there are two ways to wire single-pole switches and lights. So now we’ve established if you have a single-pole light switch. Or if you have any other configuration other than one switch turning a light off and on, then nothing here pertains to your situation.īut this would pertain to situations where you have one single light switch that turns on two or more lights that are daisy chained together, like the ten recessed lights in my studio that all turn on with the flip of one single light switch. If you have a situation like that, then nothing here pertains to your switch. That’s different from three-way light switches, which you might find in large room or a room with several entrances, where the main light in the middle of the room can be switched on and off by two separate light switches, generally located on opposite sides of the room. If you have one light switch that turns your light on and off, then that’s a single-pole light switch. So let’s get to the topic at hand… How do you know if you have a single-pole light switch? What I am encouraging is for homeowners to be educated and knowledgeable. Got it? 🙂 So while electrical stuff really isn’t difficult, I’m not encouraging anyone to go beyond their comfort zone here. But if you’re informed, you can give valuable input and hopefully avoid some of those decisions that would have normally been left up to others, and that then become daily annoyances for you when you actually have to live with those decisions. If you are completely uninformed when it comes to the different systems that go into your home, and you have no idea how they work, then you’re left completely reliant upon others to make some pretty critical decision on things that will affect your every day life once they pack up their tools and leave. You may never wire an electrical circuit with your own two hands, but if you understand how this stuff works, then you can have actual valuable input if and when you ever have an addition built onto your house, or if and when you ever have a new house built from the ground up. Please check with your local building code/permit office to see what’s permitted and required in your area.)īut again, and I’ll say this a thousand more times, I fully believe that an informed homeowner is an empowered homeowner. (In compliance with local building codes, of course.
Or if you do decide to do some electrical wiring yourselves, I’m hoping that my posts will give you the encouragement you need to understand that it’s really not so difficult, BUT then you’ll reach out to a knowledgeable person who can stand next to you while you’re learning and walk you through the hands-on stuff until you feel comfortable doing it yourself.
In fact, I realize that many (probably most) of you won’t actually use this information yourselves. But first, a few explanations and caveats.įirst of all, please understand that I’m sharing this, along with the other few posts about electrical stuff, not because I’m hoping you’ll go out and rewire your entire house.
#WIRE MULTIPLE LIGHTS ONE SWITCH HOW TO#
It has taken me a little longer than I thought, but I’m finally ready to show y’all how to wire a basic single-pole light switch.
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