Two dimmers (for two separate lights) in one junction box where there's only White, Black and Red coming out of the wall

Question

So, 40 yr old townhouse, there are two ceiling lights in the "rec room" area of the bottom floor/basement. Two dimmer dials/switches (push in for on or off, twist for dimmer function) in one receptacle near the doorway. One died, so i decided to update with some nice LED-rated Lutron dimmers (toggle + slider).

Pull off the faceplate, pull out the dimmer units, and the dimmers both have two black wires coming out, no identifying marks. Out of the wall, there's a black, a red and a white wire. I was not smart, and did not take a picture, or keep track of which wire went where, relying on the Lutron instructions to get me though it. Turned off the breaker, and removed the old switches, and wired the new switches in what I thought was the right way according to the instructions.

Well, one switch now turns on both lights, and that slider dims both lights, the second switch does nothing, but the slider dims one light.

The Lutrons have Black, Red, Red-White and green(ground, which i will eventually screw to the back of the junction box).

I've gotten as far as the black is common hot, so the red and the white must be "traveller" wires to the separate light fixtures, and i tried wiring the red on each dimmer unit to those, one to red, one to white. Different, but similar behaviour on the switches and sliders.

Any advice (other than "call an electrician, ya mook!")?

Answer 1

I think you have mis-identified the "hot" wire. Do you have a multimeter? Assuming your box is actually grounded, carefully measure the voltage between the red, black and white wires to the box. If only one has 120 volts on it, then that is your hot wire. If 2 wires have 120 volts, then someone did a bad thing and wired the switches to break the neutral.

Another way to identify which wire is hot is to pull down the light fixtures and examine the wiring. Don't disconnect anything without taking notes about how it was hooked up first!