I'm trying to replace upstairs/downstairs lighted Leviton Decora 3-way switches that control one light upstairs with GE Z-Wave On/Off 3-Way Light Switches (from the kit version, 45638). The problem is there's quite a lot of extra wires, and as I'm a new owner to this house I'm still trying to figure out how the previous owners wired everything. Many of the outlets/switches I've replaced have been mickey moused into working, some pretty dangerous.
So getting to the problem at hand... there are more wires in the upstairs box than there are in the downstairs one. Reading up on typical 3-way switch replacements, this configuration doesn't seem to be a normal, as far as I can tell. It has a Common (Black) and two travelers (Red & White), but it also has two sets of capped off wires (2x Black and 2x White) which I'm not sure where they go. The downstairs box has a Common (Black), and two Travelers (Red & White) Only. I'm leaving out Ground wires as everything has a ground, so that's not the issue.
For ease of explaining: here's a diagram of the up/downstairs wiring as it is currently with the Leviton Decora 3-way switches and then on the bottom what the GE 3-way On/Off Light Switch side-screw configurations look like. All the side-screws have been exaggerated so you can see the colors of the screws.
So it comes down to:
- Will the Z-Wave switches even be compatible?
- If so, which wires should be connected to which screws on the Z-Wave switches?