Ceiling Fan/Light Switched Seperately at two locations (1 Viewer)

[JedW]

I want to wire my ceiling fan in the new family room/home theater room to be able to turn the fan and ligh on and off indepentantly from 2 locations. Does anybody know of a diagram or a description of how to do this. I know that it will take 4 3 way switches and I ran two seperate runs of 12-3 from the switches to the fan box. The power comes in at one of the switch boxes.

 

[Gary Silverman]

Jed,Next time, run the 3 wire cables from switch box to switch box, and then a 3 wire cable from the second switch box to the fan. It's much easier connection-wise and there will be more room in the fan box.
But anyway, at the switch box where the power comes in,for each switch, put the black power wire to the odd colored screws of the three way switches. Then put the black and red of the 12/3's to the two similar colored screws.Splice the 3 whites together.
At the second switch location, put the white wire on the odd colored screw and the black and red wires on the similar colored screws.
At the fan box,splice the blacks and the reds so that they just continue through the box.(4 splices)Make sure that the pair from one cable goes to the pair on the other cable.
At the fan box, you'll be left with 4 white wires. Paint the white wires coming from the second switch box, black, and attach one to the fan black(fan) and the other to the fan blue(light). Connect the white wires from the first switch box(the power one)to the fan white.
Boy, this is a lot easier to draw than to try and explain.
If you need it, e-mail me and I'll send you a drawing.I don't know how I can show it on a post.

 

[Wayne A. Pflughaupt]

Jed,

Gary is right, a picture is worth a thousand words with it comes to wiring those three-way switches. I always take a look at one of those house wiring books at the hardware stores before I do one.

By the way - never have figured out why they call a single pole, double-throw switch “three-way...”

Regards,
Wayne A. Pflughaupt

 

[JedW]

Thanks for the info Gary. The way you described was the way I was originally going to do it, but I just wanted to make sure it was the right way. Those damn 3-way switches can be confusing!! I now see that it would have been easier to run the wires to the boxes and then a singe 3 wire to the fan box, but the wires are already ran and the were not fun to pull in the first place. Thanks again.