Hall and Landing Two-Way Switch Wiring Help Required Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[mattnaylor81]

I have a problem with my hall and landing lighting, downstairs is a two switch light fitting, upstairs landing is a one switch fitting.

The downstairs light has two sets of wires supplying power to the switches, each wire carries one red and one black wire (4 in total). the light fitting has two gangs labelled "L" at the top and "L1" bottom left "L2" bottom right. Originally I took a picture of how the switch was wired when I was replacing the cover but stupidly I deleted the pic and then had to replace the back panel as the screw slots had threaded on the old one - I didn't remember to take another pic before I undid all the wiring again!

I have tried to wire the switches as per the lighting diagram which came with the new switch but I'm having problems. I've wired the switch up but only upstairs works FROM the downstairs switch and the Hall lights don't work at all, I'm positive it's just how I've wired it up and it worked fine previously; the old wiring system had a small 2inch red 'flywire' but for the life of me I can't figure out between which 2 points this ran.

Any assistance greatly appreciated!

[ericmark]

There is a cheat method to wire two way switches, the com which is the lowest l number if not marked com must have the same wire on both switches. And it will be on its own.

The first switch should have two wires in L1 and L2 however one of these will be permanently line, so as long as both switches come from the same fuse, you can borrow the permanent line from the other switch. It is likely the link connects to L1 or L2 on two way switch, but L on the single way switch.

[mattnaylor81]

Thanks for the response Eric, so I should wire the COM switch on both elements of the two way switch with the same colour wire? Sorry but I'm sure what you've said makes perfect sense to someone with the right skill set, to me it's a touch confusing! any chance of a diagram? ;)

[ericmark]

Never seems to work when I link to pictures but here goes this shows how most houses are wired, I have put a light grey circle around wires in a cable.

I did it a long time ago my web page is here where picture taken from no longer use the website but seems old stuff still there.