Im not sure if this is where i’m suppose to ask this or not, so sorry if its not… But… basically I am in the process of converting my apartment into a “smart home” as much as I can without doing any serious remodeling. I am working now on getting all dimmable LED bulbs and changing all the switches to be able to connect to smarthings, but I am running into an issue with both or my bathrooms. There is 2 switches and one switch controls the 2 track lights on the ceiling and one switch controls both the 6 vanity lights above the mirror, and the exhaust fan. I would like to be able to have both sets of lights dimmable and on one switch have a dimmer for the light and a on/off for the fan, but i cant seem to find anything for it. what options do I have? I checked the wiring and I wouldn’t need to run any separate wires to disconnect the exhaust fan from the current switch. Is there a switch that can control both of these? Could I just get a on/off toggle and connect the fan to the 2 track lights so I could at least have dimmable vanity lights? Or am I just out of luck?
( I’ve moved this to projects so you can get individualized responses based on your set up.)
First things first: you cannot use a regular lighting control dimmer to control a fan. The physics are different.
If the fan and the lights are on the same load line, then all you can do is on/off of the lights.
If you’re willing to separate them, then you can have the lights dim and the fan as an on/off, so then it becomes a question of what physical devices do you want at the switch and is it a single gang or a double gang.
The easiest thing to do for your current set up would be to use a two button single gang switch with one button that does on/off for both the fan and the vanity lights and the other button that does on/off for the other light. Pretty much the same thing you have now.
Anything else is going to require some rewiring.
Thanks for the response. It is a double gang with one gang controlling the track lights and the other gang controlling the vanity lights and the exhaust. I might try to unattach the exhaust fan from the vanity lights and rewire it to track lights and use a simple dual on/off switch for that gang, and then have the Z wave dimmer controlling the vanity lights on the second gang. Or would it be possible to wire both sets of lights to a Z wave dimmer on a single gang, and then have the second gang on a simple on/off switch for the exhaust?
It’s going to depend on the exact wiring. @Navat604 or @dalec or one of the other electrical expert’s in the community my have more to add.
Yes, but we still need to verify what you have behind the switch box. You need to have a neutral available for the dimmer function. So you need to open up the switch box and take a look. Post a picture.
Sure if the neutral is located at your switch box.
Hello! Here’s a rather simplistic enquiry.
I have a bathroom, where the original install features a double dimmer switch controlling (unaccountably) a set of 3 incandescent lamps, and 1 lamp and the extract fan, a remote inline device of desperate spec. on another dimmer(!) The fan hanging on a dimmer switch is clearly nonsensical, as is the overall design.
The clients wish to upgrade the lighting to dimmable LEDs and have the fan switched correctly. My point is this; extractor fans should be automatically switched along with the lighting, per Building Regs in UK. The only way to do this is by having a dimmer and a make/break switch on a single gang.
Can anyone steer this geriatric electrician to such an item? Back in the day, when I started out in Telecomms, ganged switches doing all sorts of thing that were required simultaneously were commonplace. I’d love some help on this, Steve.