Sounds like you're making progress. Let me know if you need any additional help.
A bit of advice I learned along the way. When you are finished, before you turn on the power double check yourself. Then go have a sandwich and cold drink. Then come back and check again.
Out of curiosity, in what part of the country do you live? I'm in Connecticut and have never seen black Romex nor a 3-way switch with terminals like that, and I've worked on houses made in the 30's up to current construction.
In accord with @JohnRob, check and recheck... if my "image on the back of my eyelids" is accurate, that brown wire on the old switch SHOULD be in it's own romex.. it is not part of the romex that has the red.
From the pic, it seems to go "down" while the red and I'm guessing white, is coming in from above.
This worked! I stayed up way too late and finished this up, super excited that it’s working as expected. I’ll have to see how things go over the next few weeks and if there’s any benefit in adding the add-on switch to the inside. I may just leave as is- or remove the switch all together.
Backstory, this flood light is great when we pull up our driveway, but leaving in the morning (or going back out at night) it’s a dark walk to the cars. We’ve crossed black bear too many times. What I’ve been doing lately is manually toggling the switch before leaving in the AM which forces the light to come on for a few minutes. Now HE can do that for me when the door is opened. Some automations are nice to have, this one I really needed a solution for, so I’m so glad it worked.
Thanks again to everyone who helped, especially @csteele@JohnRob and @Navat604. Great community here..
Hey John, you’ll see in my prior post that I got this working. Thanks for your help. House is in rural NJ. I changed a switch just like that one a few years ago, so not a one-off.
The new switch requires Hot, Neutral and Load, at a minimum. Add-On requires a wire between the two switches and Neutral.
The photos were a help because it highlighted there was Hot & Neutral in the same box. In other words, the Inside switch was not needed in any way, if there was only a single switch to be replaced. The hunt for the red wire plus the photo showing two switches (neutral inside) indicated the Add-On is going to be easy since it needs only two wires: traveler (to the Garage switch) and Neutral.
Some safety aspects were needing review too.. it would be unusual to have two breakers feed into one electrical box, but not impossible. Therefore when the breaker was off, I asked you check the receptacle. IF it was still hot, it would be more difficult.
Put an entirely different way.... the WORST possible wiring would have a Hot ONLY in the Inside box along with no neutral Inside. With only two wires running between, it would have been impossible. You need one wire between for the Traveler, the other wire will be in your situation, unused, capped at both ends, but in the worst case that ONE wire could be used to bring Hot from Inside to the Garage OR to bring Neutral from the Garage to Inside... but it sure can't do BOTH.
Thus I started with, "is this impossible?" and the pics indicated it wasn't.
I think in your case preparation = repetition. The more time you work on this type of project the better you get.
BTW I did notice you purchased a GE Switch not a dimmer for use with a light with a motion sensor. It showed me you were thinking your project through.
As for the process, @csteele is absolutely correct, however I find I do better with graphics (maybe I'm used to drawing schematics). Personally I find making a sketch of the boxes and wires helps me be sure I don't toast anything. Also I file them in case I ever want to reverse the process. You need to find what work best for you.
I can definitely understand how good drawings would be helpful. I think I struggle with not being able to "see everything" - i.e., once that wire leaves the room, I can't see it, so it breaks the thought process. Seeing is believing, after all. I imagine alot of folks can just draw the picture in their minds, but I'm certainly a visual learner so a fully vetted diagram would be really useful for me, especially as a beginner. Have to balance that pre-work with the lure of wanting the job done though - I was racing through it last night and I know thats not wise with electrical. Seeing that zwave light come on was a huge win, but I punished myself by staying up too late, not properly lighting the dark garage, etc. Live and learn. That said, my solution DID work this morning when I left the house at 6am. Was great to have a nice lighted path
I did more than 1k plus 3 ways circuits during my years as an electrician. Started off as an electrical eng. But money was good so I changed career. It was interesting work especially repairing DIY wiring. There were many times I got stumped. People are very creative with electrical work when they don't follow code.
I love it when people said "nope, I didn't do anything to this light at all. It just doesn't work anymore". Saying that 99% of the time. They were telling the truth.
Jesus, I'm glad I'm not the only one. The fact that I didn't strike out last night, especially after finally giving in and slouching the old switches back in which don't work now because the keep popping the breaker, is a miracle. I don't know, maybe all the electricians and Light manufacturers could come up with some things at call in the normal world "STANDARDS" so the stupid directions the idiots at GE through together (quick tip, if you identify points on the paper with letters, it's really helpful if those letters are reflected on the actual part and in the appropriate locations. A 6 month old dog could have done better, idiots).
And now to follow them!!!! Isn't the point of having standards to ensure things are consistent? I love that smartthings write up, but Jesus, why are there 300 different ways to kill that cat, one of which GE decided to cover without even a hint of the others. This is a pet peave of mine, that being GE, or whoever they hired to do their technical copy, gave all of 12.33% effort on something that can no kidding kill someone. I get frustrated when someone half assing something important like that , and for what?
I'm not mad at mine in here, I love all you guys to death. This community is by and large the antithesis of half assing, prolly why I wanna hang out with ya so bad!!!!
I would love to see changing out light switches as easy as changing out light bulbs but that's not happening anytime soon. This type of work is not meant for regular people for a reason.
I stay away from gas work with a ten feet pole for the very same reason. If you think it's unsafe... Don't try to do it.
Light electrical work (replacing a receptacle falls in that category) is definitely meant for regular people. It is very simple (and safe) if you kill the breaker and follow basic directions. There are youtube videos for any simple electrical work needed.
If it were so dangerous a lot more people would die from it, and a lot more houses would be burning down from crappy installations. Some do, but it isn't like it's an epidemic.
You want to see bad electrical, go to mexico. I did some code review work there, and it leaves one with nightmares and disbelief that the whole country hasn't burned down.
What regular people shouldn't do in my opinion are wire splicing, multi-phase connections, grounding troubleshooting, and high voltage work.
@pete3500, I mean no offence, but if someone cannot accomplish the task at hand using the GE supplied information information perhaps this is not a project that should be taken on.
There are standards, in most places they consist of the NEC code + local codes. No mfg should (nor be expected to) provide all encompassing instructions. I look at the instruction sheet as I would look at a part data sheet (i.e. relay, solenoid, etc). If the user dose not understand the datasheet they should obtain help to either learn of help accomplish the task at hand.
Everyone seeking help here must realize the folks responding (for the most part) clearly understand the concepts. In this case a 3-Way installation of a Smart switch. And still, with that knowledge they require photos, additional details etc. No way GE could put that in their instructions.
Another aspect of the task is workmanship. The homeowner must have some basic understanding of workmanship to accomplish such an installation. Wire nuts that are the wrong size, cut insulation not inspected for and remediated etc. These are basic skills required to attempt such a task.
I've met a number of extremely intelligent folks who's abilities lie in other areas. They were smart enough to know this type of project was out of their comfort zone and would obtain help.
Sorry if my reply is more like a "rant". To some degree it is.
So maybe, like most things, the morale of the story is that people need to know their own limitations. And if they aren't comfortable doing a job, or don't have the time to learn how to do it right, they should get someone more experienced.
There are a few things I won't do because I'm not comfortable. HVAC compressor repair/coolant charging is one of them. I'm a degreed engineer, but simply don't want to spend the time to learn to do it right, even though it looks very straight forward. So I pay someone to do it (that is insured if they goof it up. lol).
To add a quick moral of the story, I came here pretty much clueless on 3-way switches, got some help from the community and got my application solutioned. Great.
Next day..
There's a 3 way switch in my house that has never worked right, I suspected it was wired wrong but never had the courage or know-how to fixit. After 4 years of living with the inconvenience of a bad 3-way switch, I fixed it in one hour. The load wire was not on the right terminal. A day later my wife says, "this is one of the best things you've ever fixed around here..."
The web/youtube/forums provide a really powerful tool to help the average joe fix their own stuff. I have no training, not even a shop class... but I know how to change oil, brakes, sweat copper pipes, fix a vacuum... and now I can say I know the basics of a 3 way switch. Only reason I can do anything of this stuff is from learning online.
