You can turn on the lights in the living room and hallway with a simple push of a switch, so you don't have to worry about going to the bathroom in the dark. Wiring this switch can be done in two ways.
The most common method is to daisy chain the lights , which involves connecting them together and connecting the first light to the switch.
Another option for connecting multiple light fixtures to a single switch is to run them all through the switch in a "home run" configuration.
The second option allows you to quickly detach the fixtures you no longer need, but it becomes impractical when there are more than two fixtures involved.
Before installing the wiring, make sure that the circuit breaker for the lighting circuit is off . Before touching any wire, it is advisable to check it using a voltage tester.
The Basics of Light Switch Wiring
You must first learn how to connect a light fixture to a switch before you can connect multiple light fixtures to a switch.
Each 120-volt circuit that powers lights in a typical home has two live wires and a ground.
One of the conductive wires is black, and it is the hot wire, that is, the one that carries electricity from the power supply to the load.
The other is the white conductor. The return wire connects the load to the power source and completes the circuit.
Since a switch turns off the hot leg of the circuit, it only has terminals for the black wires (and ground). Brass terminals are used.
The black wire from the power supply is connected to one of these brass terminals, the line terminal, and the black wire from the light fixture is connected to the other, the load terminal . The box now has two white wires and two ground wires. What are you going to do with them?
Since the load return line does not pass through the switch, the white wires are simply spliced or connected together. Twist the exposed ends together and screw on a wire cap to finish.
The ground wires are also twisted together, but they also need to be attached to the green ground screw on the switch. This is easily accomplished by leaving a longer wire so that you can wrap it around the terminal .
Daisy chain lighting fixtures
Daisy chaining is not the same as stringing lights together. When you string lights together, if one of them fails, they all go out.
When you daisy chain lighting fixtures, you connect them in parallel, which is easy thanks to the standard electrical color code.
If you are only connecting one light fixture to a switch, the fixture box will have a live wire with black, white, and ground wires.
Connect the black wire to the black wire on the fixture, the white wire to the white wire on the fixture, and the bare wire to the ground wire on the fixture or ground screw.
If you want to add a light fixture, you will need an additional cable to connect it to the box. This cable will most likely run through the attic.
Simply connect the black wire to the two existing black wires, then repeat with the white wire and ground wire. As you increase the number of wires in each group from two to three, you may need larger wire covers .
You can attach another light fixture to the one you just connected using the same technique, and you can continue adding light fixtures until the total current in the circuit reaches the rated limit of the circuit breaker .
Wiring a household switch
There aren't many good reasons to connect many light fixtures to the same switch.
One reason might be that the switch box is easier to reach than the light fixture boxes , and another might be that the wiring is only temporary, and you want to be able to quickly disconnect the new lighting.
Each hot wire coming out of a household light switch must be connected to the load terminal of the switch.
The easiest way to do this is to make a pigtail , that is, twist together all the black wires going to the light fixtures with a spare 6" black wire.
Connect the short wire to the load terminal after screwing a wire cap onto the spliced joint.
Connect the ground wires to the ground terminal using the same method. You will not need a pigtail until you reach the white wires.
All you have to do is twist them together and cap them. When you connect more than two lights to a single switch, this setup becomes complicated and you may need a larger electrical box to accommodate all the connections.
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