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I have a bathroom fan, heater, light combo - the switch I got has three toggle rockers on it . There's one black common screw and three silver screws on the switch. Does the black power go to the common or does the single pigtailed white go to the common and the blacks to the silver screws?

Should clarify that I have three wires from the new combo unit... one for the light &a night light, one for the heater and one for the fan

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    In general, pictures help. I'll still be providing an answer though. – Hari Ganti Mar 15 '17 at 23:34
  • Wait a minute here -- are these 3 outgoing cables with a 4th cable incoming from the power feed, or are these 3 switch loops? – ThreePhaseEel Mar 16 '17 at 1:22
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    The former, only thing not pictured is the incoming power feed. – Tony Mar 16 '17 at 1:24
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You never switch a neutral

That principle should make it clear how this should get wired. Based on your picture, this diagram should help:

Wiring Diagram

You take the hot (typically black) wire from your breaker, connect it to the single black screw on the set of switches. The black screw indicates it's the "Line Side." You take a bunch of wires and connect them to the silver screws (which indicate "Load Side"). Those wires then go to their respective connections at the light/fan/heater. There should be a single white wire to pigtail to, which is your neutral return. That should not be switched anywhere. You probably also have a chassis ground on your light/fan/heater. Be sure to wire that.

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  • The hot/power from the dedicated breaker line right to the black screw on the switch ? Then why about the black and white pairs for the fan, heater, light? Looks like the three blacks go to the three load screws. And just connect all three whites together, pigtailed to the white wire from the breaker? (Which the black pair is connected o the line side of the switch) right? – Tony Mar 16 '17 at 0:02
  • It doesn't have to be a dedicated breaker (unless the circuit also serves receptacles in the bathroom), but yes. The black and white lines are my way of depicting white wires. It's hard to draw white on white. Take a picture of your light/fan/heater wire leads. My guess is that you have three black (or three non-white, non-green, non-bare) wires, one white wire, and one green or bare wire. In any case, post the requested picture and I'll try to clarify. – Hari Ganti Mar 16 '17 at 0:38
  • Image added...I'll take the three white wires and pigtail them and connected to the white line wire then each of the three black wires remaining will be connected to the silver screws on the switch while the black line wire will connect to the black screw on the switch – Tony Mar 16 '17 at 0:46
  • That description sounds correct. – Hari Ganti Mar 16 '17 at 0:48

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