California Four-Way 2018-02-03

I don't want to live here anymore. The neighbourhood has simply outgrown me. Lately I have been doing a bunch of drywall patching and painting, but today I was replacing broken light switches. A normal light switch (one switch and one light) is a two-way switch. When you have a pair of light switches that control one light you need to use three-way switches. In my case, I had three switches controlling one light... which requires a four-way switch and two three-way switches.

This afternoon I was fighting with setting up my stupid triple switch light fixture so I called Nutcracker to see if he could wrap his head around the wiring. He referred to a California three-way which I think is when you use a ground wire in a way you shouldn't. I figured I'd call my little situation a California four-way, even though it has nothing to do with fancy workarounds. It's just a naughty sounding phrase.

The lesson: just use two-way switches.

Anyways, Nutcracker came by to help out. He looked at a wiring diagram, mapped it all out in his head, and told me which wires to hook up. Turns out it worked first try. Well, that didn't take very long at all. Thanks man.