I am trying to add a 3 way white switch with Aux switch on one side. I’ve successfully done this on some other switches in the house, but this particular one in my living room is confusing me a bit.
I have 2 boxes, they are all on the same circuit.
In Box 1, I encountered the switch with a 14/3 connected to the switch, with the red and black on the brass terminals, and the neutral (electrician used sharpie to mark it black) connected to the common terminal.
In Box 2, the switch has 2 reds attached to it, 1 for the load to the lamp, and the other red being the traveler connected to the common terminal. The black is also being used as a traveler. The neutral (again sharpied black) is bundled with a wire nut with a bunch of other blacks and one hot wire coming from a separate romex. I tested all of these separately with a non-contact tester and a multi-meter – there is only one hot wire coming into this box.
This box also has a few capped off wires that I’m not using – it used to hold the switch for controlling the fan separately from the light. Those are also capped off.
I’ve attached a rough diagram here of what I’m encountering.
One way I’ve thought about doing this is to do a non-neutral install, basically adding a black jumper in the Innovelli switch to the hot wirenut in Box 1, and then capping off the white/black neutral that was used previously on both ends. I tried that and all the switches worked well – the existing dumb switches worked, and the Inovelli and Aux switch worked fine on both ends as well, regardless of position.
However, I’d prefer a neutral install, but I’m unsure if that’s possible. I think I’m just too much of a novice. I’ve done plenty of basic electrical but sometimes these things throw me off.
Is there a way to do a neutral install here, and does anyone know what I’m encountering/what it’s called? Basically in one box it’s using the neutral to get power to the common terminal on one of the switches.
Please let me know your thoughts.
