bypassing branched circuit lights


  #1  
Old 04-15-17, 11:30 AM
M
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 11
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
bypassing branched circuit lights

Hello,

I'm doing a slight remodel on my kitchen and I'd like to add lighting. However, I found out that the light currently is part of a branched circuit for lighting up multiple rooms in the house. Since I planned on adding several more lights to it, I thought the easiest way would be to just put the kitchen lighting all on its own breaker and bypassing the existing circuit.
Curious if there's a preferred way to do so?

Kitchen has a main light, sink light and an outdoor light. Kitchen light is on a 3 way switch.
I cracked open the switches and found the following.
switch 1 (with outdoor light switch)
4 wires in (RYBW)
2 wires in (YW)
kitchen switch:
Y - top left
B - top right and jumped to outdoor switch at top left
R - bottom right

outdoor switch:
Y - top right
B - top left jumped from kitchen switch

second switch in 3-way kitchen:
4 wires (RYBW)
2 wires (BW)
W pigtailed together
R - top left
B - top right
Y - bottom right

Sink light switch:
chaos (see image)
switch itself is the lower left box with the yellow and black wire attaching.
Name:  switch.png
Views: 113
Size:  5.3 KB
the upper right back side of the sink light switch is also the switch for the basement light.

Sink light:
BW wires

Unfortunately I cant' get into the kitchen light yet as floor under it is being worked on.

Is anyone able to determine with the info I have if that's possible?
Thanks!
 
  #2  
Old 04-15-17, 12:23 PM
C
Member
Join Date: May 2015
Location: USA
Posts: 3,167
Received 169 Upvotes on 137 Posts
Welcome to the forums!


First, I would add up the wattage of all the lights on the circuit and see if you even need to split things off. You can have quite a few lights on a single circuit.

It appears the feed for the kitchen lights on the 3 way is the black wire now jumped between the two switches. So it would be easy to tie in the new hot there. Run the existing black wire only to the outdoor switch and run the new black wire to the terminal on the 3 way switch that was jumped to the outdoor switch.

The tricky part will probably be separating the neutrals. You have to identify which white wires go to the kitchen lights you want on the new circuit and isolate those from everything else.

Can't follow your sketch....the box is the switch...what are the circles?

Are these runs in conduit?
 
  #3  
Old 04-15-17, 12:39 PM
M
Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2017
Location: United States
Posts: 11
Upvotes: 0
Received 0 Upvotes on 0 Posts
circles are just where the wires come in to the box itself, knockouts i guess. Yes, they are all run in conduit, or at least from what i've seen so far.

I should also note that the pink = white in the image if you weren't sure.
 
 

Thread Tools
Search this Thread
 
Ask a Question
Question Title:
Description:
Your question will be posted in: