Three way

My house is cold.

I blame Borders.

I'm sure they'd disagree, but following the causal chain back a mere 48 hours find me looking at a display in their store.

It was for a collection of Ten Pound Books.
Come to think of it, they're responsible as well. I was looking for a how-to on patios and got sucked in by their home improvement porn.

Page after page of idealized homeowners calmly bending homes to their will.
Tidy summaries of every imaginable problem – and how impossibly easy they are to solve. I buy a book on outdoor projects (patio) and one on indoor projects (because, then I'll have everything! ).

I'm thinking of all the awkward wiring in my house – when I see it: a programmable light switch. Yeah – a programmable light switch!!

I'll explain.

I have this thing where I like to have the porch light on at night. All night. Adds light to somebody's walk home, welcomes someone seeking help in the night, banishes my personal portion of darkness, etc. My one contribution to my neighborhood. I give you light.

Winter complicates this simple gesture by making darkness fall before E and I get home at night. Either I leave the light on all the time (which seems wasteful) or I flip it on when we get home (meaning we unlock our door in the dark). Lame and lamer.

Enter the Ten Pound Book. Ho-HO! it crows – have you heard of a programmable light switch?

I had not. Tell me more, oh wondrous enabler!
 
You swap your regular switch for a programmable one that can be set to go on and off at set times of the day.

It's that easy!

Well, I say (in the time honored manner of those destined to be humbled) even I can do that.

So the next day, I'm in the hardware store on some other thing and I go looking for one of these switches. I ask some young guy – in clear violation of rule one - He wastes my time for about five minutes before I find one at the other end of the store.

It's shiny. It has pre-programmed times for dusk and dawn that can be tailored to your time zone. Then you just say, On at dusk, off at dawn.

Cool! There's only one left and (though it seemed unimportant at the time) it was white.

I buy it.

Soon as I get home, I get cracking. This is a simple job. There's one switch to the porch lights. All I have to do is turn off the power, take out the old switch, and swap in the new switch. Five minutes.

Except there's one complication: the breakers in my house are not labeled. Well, they do have labels – it's just that the labels are completely inaccurate.

“Kitchen outlets” declares the breaker that (I know from experience) leads to the master bedroom. “Down lights” controls outlets on the second floor, and so on.

When we remodeled the kitchen a good number of these got mapped properly – and I have a Google spreadsheet that I've been updating when I learn something definite (two prior written attempts were “relocated” by small people).

Today, this ends! I turn on everything and begin mapping the breakers. In short order I have verified all but three switches #2 (the furnace), #22/24 (the A/C) and #5 (which does nothing as far as I can tell).

First hurdle cleared – and I have a (nearly) complete breaker map.

I'm so good.

Enter the next complication: the hall light switch.

The switch for the porch light is in the same box with the switch for the front hall. I work with the porch light; I have to work around the hall switch.

It's a three way. And it's on a different breaker. Breaker #1.

No problem, Turn off both breakers, swap out switch – done.

I pull out the old switch, and break out the new, programmable one. It's a massive cube. The electrical box I'm putting it into? Not so much.

Bonus: whoever put this box in didn't bother trimming the sheet rock around it, and even wallpapered over the screws for each switch. I'm an idiot, and even I know you don't do that. Also, the box is full of bits of broken sheetrock.

Nice.

I vacuum out the box, spent an inordinate amount time moving the bird's nest of wire aside to make room for the programmable, and ultimately get to a point where I'm ready to put the cover back on.

Now, I'd bought a cream colored switch cover (with two openings) under the assumption that I'd just deal with the programmable being a different color. All the old covers in my house are that way – I figured if the bulk of the color matches, I won't care.

One day, maybe I'll swap out the three way, get a new cover and make them all white.

I stand up to get my screwdriver.

SNAP!

I look down. My foot is on the switch cover – which has broken in three pieces. I had barely put any pressure on it, and it's flat! How did it…?

Directly under the switch plate is a small piece of sheet rock, fallen from the electrical box – and optimally positioned to stress and break the cover.

I look at the electrical box. It grins.

Well played…

Apparently – I'm going back to the hardware store to get a switch cover. If I'm going to do that – (and here is the critical mistake) I figure I might as well get a white three way switch and have uniformity.

Do it right. Dad would be proud.

I go and buy a white three way switch and switch cover. Last time, the clerk guessed the cover's price at $0.75, now he bills me the full $2.49.

It's an omen.

Back home, I read and re-read the Ten Pound Book's section on three way switches. I examine the pretty picture in minute detail. No surprises.

I pull out the hall light switch. It looks nothing like the pretty pictures.

And right here – I realize the fatal flaw of books that have tidy summaries and step by step photos: they tell you how to solve an idealized problem.
The electrical Frankenstein you find in your wall? They don't tell you jack.

No problem. I have three wires going to an old switch, and when I'm done I'll have three wires going to a new switch. Black goes to common, the other two go to the travelers. I'm good.

Breakers on. Test. The switch works, but it's not a three way anymore. The other hall switch now nullifies my new switch.

Oh, I'll just swap the red and black. The red was on the common before, and I'd put black on common out of caution.

Test? Nope.

I open the other hall switch. I diagram its wires.

Okay, I fire up the interweb and look at all the diagrams for three way switches I can find.

None of them resemble what I'm seeing.

I'd started in early afternoon, stopped for dinner and now it's dark. I'm working by flashlight, because (months ago) the boy broke my trouble light.

This is what I wanted to avoid – scope creep and working by flashlight. I can't figure out what the hell is wrong with my new switch, but I know that the old switch worked.

So, I put the old one back in. Breaker on, test – it works.

Good enough. Dad would spit on me, but I need to get this damn thing done. I leave the breaker on and start muscling the switches far enough apart to get the cover on. At some point I lever it with a screwdriver and-

*Pop*

Sparks , smoke – it's suddenly dark.

Dammit. The wires on the old switch had been stripped back a little too far and I'd managed to touch the hot wire and the metal of the box.

I tripped the god dammed breaker. Breaker #1 controls the hall light AND the garage lights but since it's the first breaker – it's on the top, so it's easy enough to find.

I pull the breaker towards me. Nothing happens.

Hmmm – you don't suppose I ruined something at the switch?

Back to the switch, I check with the flashlight – everything's still attached.

I bring the flashlight back into the garage and look at the breaker. It's kind of in the middle.

Didn't pull it enough.

Off again. On again. The hall light is back on. I re-check to see nothing's ruined/scorched/waiting to explode then turn the breaker off again.

Then I suck it up and ask E to hold the damn flashlight while I cut off the wire ends, strip them to a reasonable length and put the switch back in.

Switch back in, breaker on, lights on.

E points out I should cut the plaster to make the programmable fit better (*smack own head*) so I do. Then I vacuum out the debris (I'm SO better than that guy ).

Moment of truth…

The plate doesn't fit. The big opening is just a hair too small. Now, the last plate - the broken one? Totally fit.

This new one - the $2.49 one? Does not fit.

We're past pretty. I get my box cutter and scrape the opening wider. I tighten the screws and….?

The cover comes with four screws, two long, two short. The short ones are too short and don't reach the outlet.

I get some beige ones from another cover. I'm so over this.

Cover on. Programmable programmed (it even works!). Test the three way, and it works like it should. It's the old switch – beige behind a white cover – but it works.

I glare at the switch. Okay. You're done.

I go to bed.

Hah!

Morning.

E's waking me up. Telling me it's 60 degrees in the house.

I'm like… Whaaa?

I'd flipped the mystery breaker #5 off, maybe it was the… No! I'd turned it back on, because I was afraid that it would be something important.

So, how…?

I go to the thermostat. It has no power.

I go to the breaker box.

Breaker #2 (the furnace) is off.

Last night, after I'd tripped the hall light breaker, I'd reached into the dark towards the easy to find #1 and grabbed #2 (which is also at the top of the box). If # 2 was in the same column, pulling it towards me would have no effect. Happily #2 is in the opposite column – so pulling it towards me turned it off.

I turn the furnace on and get some coffee. Game, set, match – three way.

E wants to go to Borders today. Me too. I'm going to give those people a piece of my mind.