Hello All! Homeowner told a fellow electrician I know that he installed a few three way toggle switches upside down, and that he would not pay final bill until they were turned around properly. Without arguing too much, he did what owner asked, and got paid. Am I missing something here? Has anyone else out there ever come across "upside down three ways"?

What did he use to determine that they were upside down???
There's no text on the handle.

I prefer to wire mine so that the load is off when both handles are down, but that's just a quirk that I have. It's not required by NEC or anything else that I'm familiar with.

Thats bizarre, unless what the homeowner meant was that to have the lights on both toggles "should" be up or both toggles should be down sort of thing?? Not that it all matters much but ya know how fussy / strange some people can be!

A.D

So, what happens if both handles are down, lights off. Then, you go to one 3-way and turn the lights on - handle up. Then you go to the other three way, which is still in the down position, to turn the lights off? OOPS !! Handle is UP and lights are OFF !!! What's up with this???

Whats up is they have to much time on their hands.

But regarless of what postions you put the switches over time when returned to 'all down' the load can always be 'off'.....not that I would care.

Job security, I guess. Every week you would have to go back and turn half of them back around to satisfy homeowner. Homeowner said "That is how previous electrician installed them, and he knew what he was doing." We still joke about it. Just wanted everyone else's thoughts.

Mount the 3 way switches horizontally. Then the issue of "up-side-down" goes away.

Perhaps if you show the homeowner that Section 404.7 Exception No. 1 permits the three ways to operate in the up or down position, they will be less concerned.

They may be under the impression that up always means "on", and that down always means "off".

We did have to come behind another electrician on a res job and clean up some stuff. They had wired the red and black from all the ceiling fans to the runners on 3way switches. Up you got the light, down you got the fan, never neither or never both. Maybe he wanted the fan up and the light down.

But then you can argue about whether both switches left or both switches right is off, or whether one left and one right is off!

I've found the thing which confuses some people is where you have two 3-ways on a dual plate, e.g. for ceiling and counter lights in a kitchen which has two doorways. They sometimes can't grasp that depending upon the position of the switches at the other end of the room, there will be a time when you have to move one switch up to turn on a light and the other down.