All the wires (except ground) have current except for one black wire at one of the two switches.

“Attach the hot wire at switch A to the common screw”. What is considered the common screw?

This helped, thanks so much! Have a great day. My dad gave you his highest praise, which is “I like this guy.”

Give me a call at 310-398-7430 (voice only-no texts) and I can help you out. Thanks, Jim

Give me a call at 310-398-7430 (voice only-no texts) and I can help you out. Thanks, Jim

I don't see a ground wire in this video....is this normal? My switches all have ground wires

It’s a great topic and explanation - only thing for me is that The switch I am using has two screws on the right, the ground on the top, and nothing on the left. I don’t think your count of 3 screws includes the ground. If you only have 2 screws, is there a way to use a multimeter to find the common? Or another way?

Good info. One question, what if switch A has house current on two of the three wires when you check it with a no contact electrical tester. Switch B appears to have four wires while switch A has three wires and two of them have current. Switch B has no current when testing with electrical tester. Switch B is in the entry foyer of the house while switch A is in the garage and they switch turns on several lights (two lights on either side if the garage door, the light at the front door right outside the foyer and a front yard lamp in the front yard. Could one of the travelers have house current?

now this is a video to actually teach you how to do things right. unlike the other videos where they have the most perfect setup and you learn almost nothing from it because there is nothing complicated like the wiring in outdated homes you deal with.

I have a question, i performed your test and followed everything and I identified switch A, the three wires there and switch b two Traveler wires but I’m unsure which which wire of two additional wires is the load wire at B? I know they go to an electric plug (a white and a black wire). I’m sure they both have to be hooked up somehow. But there’s only one load terminal left on the B switch? hopefully that makes some sense? Thanks for any advice or info.

Amazing video. The best how to video I think I’ve ever watched. No commercials, no BS, just straight to the point concise and easy to follow with good video quality and sound. Thanks so much, you should definitely make more videos.

This method worked perfectly... was able to correct a miswired 3-way switch in about 15 minutes. Thank you MarVistaCat

Awesome video. Thank you so much for this information. Saved me so much time.

Similar problem but with a four-way. What do I need to do to figure it out? I'm assuming I have to disconnect all the wires at all three locations and find the hot wire, but how do I figure the load?

but what to do if the wire I am tracing happens to be the ground wire?

Perfectly done video, and a simplest solution I've seen.

Like others have said, this video is to-the-point and resolves wire color-coding/marking issues at both switches. I'm up-and-running now.

Thank you, this was the first video that just explained it without an entire lecture on electrical theory, and the history of the 3-way switch.

Thanks. Theses switches were driving me crazy for ten years. After watching this video I fixed the problem in 40 minutes.

I replaced two three way switches in my dining room when we painted. Followed the schematic to the T and one switch was the master and the dimmer switch was the slave. I'm a low voltage tech, so figuring this out was impossible. I watched this video and found that the line was actually the white wire and the load was the white wire for switch B. In 7 minutes what was a nightmare is now finished. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you!

What a great video! Fixed my problem. Thanks

Thank you! I had to rewatch it a few times. This video with a conductivity meter and voltage meter helped to identify the broken switch and hook the replacements up properly. I agree that this is the best video I watched on this!! Thank you!! Small note, I saw small phantom voltages of 15 to 30 VAC on the transfer wires.

Common screw?

Thanks man 7 yrs later and this vlog is still server people!!!!

This is the video that hit home. At first, I didn't think this was it, but I patiently watched it. It was the ending load that did it. My A was all powered up. But B was exactly as stated. One wire no electricity. That was it the wire went to load and it all worked out. High five, Thank You.

best how-to video ever!

thanks!

Three-way Leviton 6674-P0W install checking in. If you’re certain of your wiring but your switch works backwards, you most likely need to swap your traveler wires over

3 way switch? They only have 2 ways...

Thanks a LOt for this Video

Thank you so much. I spent hours shocking myself and tripping breakers.

What if there are 3 switches to control tue same light? Is there a 4 way switch in the middle? How do I know witch switchbox gets that one? Do you have a video example for this scenario as well?

Great, simple video, appreciate it!

One of the better videos on how to wire a 3 way switch. Keep in mind that most of those watching know nothing. They don’t know what “load” means. They don’t know what line means. Break it down a bit, but all in all, not a bad video.

Spent all day trying to get this to work and finally saw your update. THANK YOU!!

I don't know what travellers mean. Do they have a valid passport? Is their visa unexpired? What is continuity setting? What does that mean? How do I know if the test leads are connected to the right jacks?

Err..... whut?

Hey, thank you

You didn’t show the setting on the voltmeter. Fail video

This is the greatest video on KZbin :). Saved me a ton of troubleshooting time once I finally watched. Wish I would have found this hours ago!!

On the last step at switch B after connecting the load to the common screw, the other two travelers can go either way on the remaining terminals on switch B?

OMG, brilliant! thanks!

I thought to myself, there's a lot of hyperbole in these comments... Until I watched the video and used it to quickly diagnose and successfully fix our three-way switch issue. Watch and learn, KZbin creators.

That was the most straight forward video explaining in layman terms exactly how to figure out your 3 way switch wiring .. kudos to you!

Thank you! Was going nuts trying to fix a 3 way that was wired wrong at a friend's house! This did the truck first try

Thank you 🙏

Thank you.

This is exactly what I needed, I spent a couple hours watching videos that you just explained much better how to do in 2 minutes! Thank you!!!!! Only problem is I don't have grounded outlets in most of the old switch boxes. I have an old house with old wiring with all the old furry black wrapped copper wires, they all look the same so I was scratching my head how to figure out the correct wiring for new switches, replacing those old pushbutton switches!

Thanks for baling me out of a bind, I did not do any research before starting my project but this video was a life saver!

Great informative video