three-way switching - bodged? safe?

[Andrew]

I've reached a conclusion - not very handyman'ish, but it's a good one.

It all works at the moment, so what I'm going to do is merely put the rogue third switch somewhere where it can't be used, ie, behind plasterboard (if you look in the plastering section at the how to plaster over wood thread, you'll see this switch and where I'll put the @@@@inf thing). That way, I keep my existing set-up, which works as a two-way light, and I get rid of my funny third swtich!

Done and dusted!

Unless someone then tells me that putting a blanked off cable somewhere untouchable is dangerous!

Cheers all.

[Andrew]

Save you reading all the old posts, basically I have two lights (top and bottom of stairs) which are operated by two swtiches (top and bottom of stairs). You can't operate either independantly with these swtiches - they are either both on or both off. These two swtiches, instead of having three core wire, have two lots of 2 core with the un-needed wire snipped short.

All sounds fine so far (I hope). However, there is a third light switch which doesn't seem to fit in with the others. I've blanked it off now but from what I remember it only turned one on or when it was on, the others didn't work, or something stupid like that.

Anyway, attached below is my beautiful attempt to show the wiring of the ceiling rose for the one light which has this third switch wired to it.



Told you it was beautiful!

Question:
1) Can I simply remove the switch which I've labelled "funny switch" in the diagram? If I take it out, are lights not going to work or something?

Sorry the diagram is not the best. Any help would be much appreciated, because I don't want to hide the switch somewhere for someone else to ponder over!

[sparkydude]

try it and see, I would doubt if it will work still as none of the other cables have a feed and a switched live returning from them (cores cut off) the 4th cable tat the top you have marked as switch ? will not be a switch as it has a live and neutral going to it, so will not switch the light in question, but may switch something else hence the need for a neutral as well.

Nick

[ultimatehandyman]

That has confused the hell out of me, looking at things like that make my head hurt

three way switch wiring is normally not that complicated

[Andrew]

Geez, why can't anything be simple for me??!!

So I guess if I wanted this corrected, I'd have to re-wire from the sockets or cut back the wires in the loft to bring back all the wires into play and then re-wire the whole thing differently?

If this is the case, then the easiest thing for me would be to pull the wire leading to the "funny switch", curl it up and lay it on the loft insulation, blanked off, with a little note maybe?

Would this be an appropriate course of action (instead of my initial thought to blanking the switch off and putting it behind the plasterboard wall!)? Would I be frowned upon here for not sorting it out???!!!

I guess I should probably state now that one of the three "switches" in the top right hand corner of the drawing could well be going to the second light to power that? Am I right in thinking that there should only be two wires from one of the switches to this pendant (equivalent to one x 3 core and earth?)?

Thanks for your replies.

[Rich-Ando]

you're right Andrew, it is quite confusing when you just look at a couple of posts.

i'll try to remember to have a read tomorrow when i'm not battling to keep my eyes open.

two things i would say though: -

1) don't hide switches in walls thinking you don't need them m8. if you get a bad connection in that switch at some point, you can never access it.

2) wiring them from scratch is usually far quicker and simpler when you have got a set up that somebody has basically done an apprentice job on.