Home Improvement Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for contractors and serious DIYers. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
The previous owner of my newly-purchased house had someone wire garage. There is power running out to garage but the only way to use garage door openers, lights and plugs is to flip the regular light switch next to door.
There is a junction box where the power comes into garage and then one wire running to the switch that turns on the power.
How can I change the wiring so that there is constant power in garage without flipping the switch?
From the junction box where the power runs into garage.... you say you have one wire that runs to switch? so hot or switch leg is on either white or black wire on that "wire" that runs to switch?
You simply need to open junction box and identify wire that has power incoming to garage, wire that goes to lights, and wire that goes to garage door openor... From the hot wire... connect white and blacks to outlet that garage door is hooked up to. Then if you have a white or black being used as either power or switch leg to the lights from the switch.... identify which is constant hot and which is switched... either white or black and splice the the non constant hot (switch leg) to the light hot in the junction box.
Or provide more details....
" I also have another wiring question about wiring a regular ceiling light where a fan/light was mounted. There is a red, 2 blacks tied together that are going to the single switch and the whites are wire nut together. Same goes for the ceiling box. I was able to get the light to turn on but when I do, it kills power to the plug on the wall and also the master bath light."
black/red/white romex (14-3) probably goes directly to fan box location. Use red wire to switch light and keep all blacks tied together should fix that... Typically to a fan light location there is a three wire romex (red, black, white) so that you can switch the fan and light separately if needed. If you have two blacks in the ceiling light/fan box you might have power at the box feeding down to the switch on the black wire. In order to fully understand it, you will need a voltmeter to determine where the power coming in is... and then figure out what wire feeds the outlet, etc... and then simply make sure nothing is switched that isnt' supposed to be. But my guess is... that if you use red wire as switch leg to light, and tie all blacks together your issue will be resolved.
