No neutral wire in add-on switch box

So in a second part of my house I now have encountered the other (pain in the but) configuration below. So, why wouldn’t I just re-wire the wires at the base to give me a neutral at both primary and secondary switch locations, use the red wire as the traveller and use the GE switch plus GE add-on. Am I missing something? Seems like I have all the wires I need (no fishing) just need to re-route things from the base. What am I missing?

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That wiring configuration will not work with GE switches. The reason is that at the master switch you’ll need line, load, neutral and traveler for a total of four wires (the add-on switch would be fine). You only have three wires at each switch location.

Ugh Yes you are right. What if I used the 14299 at the primary and re-worked a neutral to the secondary switch since that only needs two wires?

You can either add one wire between a switch and the other switch. Or you can add one wire between a switch and the light box. Find out which scenario is easiest.

Or more generally, if I have a 14299 and a GE Add-on – can you help me understand what my options are here? I’m thinking there might be one – just not sure. My problem is my house is so old fishing new wires is impossible.

There are other options but they involve different devices.

See the FAQ.

For this type of wiring you can use relays or switches by Cooper or Linear which do not require a traveler. Another option is Lutron Caseta, GE’s 14299 Dimmer, or Leviton’s ZSS10-G0Z switches that do not require neutrals.

Sorry I missed the most important part of your post you have a 14299. You’re existing wiring should work as you don’t need a neutral.

Line, load and traveler to the 14299, then the neutral and traveler to the add-on. You’ll need to access all three locations to change the wiring

Yeah…so I need to re-configure from the light to give me a Neutral for the add-on. Its hard to figure out though which switch is the primary :frowning:

You should own a voltage tester if you’re doing your own rewiring. Turn off breaker. Disconnect one switch wiring. Turn on breaker. Check for voltage at each switch. Label wires. :slight_smile:

Yeah I do and I did – I figured this would be the only way. The strange thing is I still get readings from both switches. I removed both switches and tested every line.

What is throwing me off here is in the first ‘power to light’ example the load and the line both go to the primary switch – but in the second ‘power to light’ example the load goes to one switch and the line goes to the other.

Visualise it this way. Hot to switch, two travellers between switches, switched hot to light, neutral return to panel. All 3way work this way, there is just many different ways to wire it.

For your usage case: This is how you wire your ceiling box. The black wire to the slave switch is left disconnected, white to neutral, and red to traveller. The master switch gets white to line, black to load and red to traveller.

ceilingjb

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So, after re-working my load/line to originate from my chosen primary and routing a neutral to my secondary – all is well and all is working with my 14299 at primary and GE add-on at my secondary.

Thanks so much to this site. It would have all been impossible were it not for those who contribute to this site – I have learned a lot.

P.S. Up above I think I mentioned my voltage readings were acting weird for this one 3-way. I learned, FWIW, that I needed to pull the lightbulbs. Apparently, the filament in the lightbulbs creates some sort or path. Once I pulled the lightbulbs is was clear which one had the hot wire and which one didnt.

hi folks,
after two days of staring at wiring and making zero progress, i think i need some help. i have a 3-way switch that controls two light fixtures - one at bottom of stairs and one in the stairwell itself. Power comes into the light box on the stairwell. The switch at bottom of stairs (which I will call Master) has wiring going to the second light fixture, and going to the wiring junction. There is a neutral bundle in this box as well. Common on this switch was white (going up to light junction box) and black (going to ceiling fixture).
The slave switch box has red/black/white/ground, no neutral. Common on this switch was white.
The junction box seems to be where black and white are tied together and thus where i’m getting lost. Picture shows the junction box. The source is the 3-wire set coming into the top of the photo. The light fixture is hanging just out of frame, but you can see the black is connected to a white pair, and the white is connected to a white wire which goes to one of the other switch boxes, i’m not sure which. Red seems to be traveler, i don’t see red tied into any other color anywhere in the circuit.
I need help rewiring such that I have a neutral in the slave switch box at the top of the stairs. Is this possible?

If power is coming to this light box first, your options are going to be very limited because you don’t have enough wires to have line, neutral, load, and traveler in your switch box. This said the light bracket is in the way and hard to see which wires are going to which wire nuts. See my edits to your picture, where is the black wire in the Romex highlighted? Maybe removing the light bracket, spreading out the wires, and taking another picture will help. Also a picture of your bottom stairs box will help too.

Thanks for the quick response! I keep reading about some kind of magical pigtail method that can be used to make one of the wires currently going to the slave switch be neutral since i don’t think i need load. BTW, to be clear, i’m trying to put a GE ZW4003 Master smart switch at bottom of stairs and a GE ZW2003 Add On at the top.

Updated picture below

I’ll put the picture of the bottom switch box in a separate response

here’s the bottom switch box. i tried to call out what was what - it’s a 3 gang switch box so it’s pretty crowded, i can try to take a better pic if needed

Are the other switches in the box on the same circuit? If so this is some very strange wiring.

In the second picture you highlight the “to bottom fixture”. I see the black goes to your smart switch, but where does the white wire go? To a bunch of neutral wires?

If so I have an idea and it will require some reconfiguring in your light box. Have you confirmed that your downstairs light has white going to white and black going to black? In the upper fixture box pictured, the switches are breaking the positive line, leaving the neutral only in that box, which is typical for power to light first.

Also with a multi-meter, please figure out which of your switch boxes has 120v power on the white wire using a multi-meter with red on the white wire and black on your ground wire. One will be hot and the other not. I need to know that so we can adjust the wiring in the pictured light box. I am really hoping you are going to tell me the other switches in that pictured switch box are on the same circuit so that we have a real neutral in that box otherwise we don’t have enough wires to make this work going between the fixture and the light.

But all of this said the fact that the other light is wired to the switch box, it is getting a neutral from somewhere. Was that light added on at a separate time? This is really strange wiring.

Uh oh… So the other switches are on a different circuit unfortunately. yes, the other light was added after the fact. we bought this house a year ago and I think these switches used to be on the other side of the wall (garage) but previous owners moved them inside when they finished the basement. I’m guessing they also decided to add this light fixture as part of the remodel. The new light fixture has black going to black and white going to white.
in my second picture, there are actually two whites. One is a jumper to a bunch of neutrals that were in the switch box (it looks gray in the picture, it’s the one that has printed text on it). The other white wire goes to common (it was connected to common on the original switch, along with the black which goes to the “new” light fixture).
The top switch box has 120v power on white.