Lighting, Light Fixtures, Ceiling and Exhaust Fans - Wiring frustration in NH, please help!!!!!

Thanks in advance for your help, and hopefully someone can help me with my lighting catastrophe.

I bought a house that was foreclosed on and the previous owner(s) removed all of the overhead light/fans in each bedroom and in the living room.

I do know that the bedrooms have travellers since each fan junction box has 12/3 wired , 2 red, 2 black, and 2 white along with grounds and I was able to figure out the fans, black with black, blue with red, and white with white and they all work via the switch on the wall.

My dilemma is that I am installing a candelier in place of where(assuming) a fan went. The pancake box on the ceiling has (1) red, black, ground and white wire, my fixture has (1) black, white, and ground.

After installing the chandelier via connecting the black, white, ground combo, the fixture would not turn off via the switch, so off I went to doityourself.com for answers.

I found many threads about the mysterious red wire, which is a switch wire, and so I thought yes....this is my problem, I need my light switch to turn it off.

So off I go and rewire the fixtures black to the junction box's red wire. After doing so, I excitedly ran over to my breaker panel and flicked the breaker back on and to my utter disappoinment, no lights came on as I toggled the switch furiously up and down.

So, here I am frustrated n NH trying to figure out where do I go next? I do have 1 tool in my arsenal, the godsend called the flashy "I will blink red if I have electricity coursing through my copper veins" plastic voltage tool.

I can go and buy a new light switch for $1.29 and test it, but anyone else have a good reason why this wiring setup wouldn't work?

I don't have a voltmeter and really don't want to buy something I never plan on using again, other than to throw it into the garbage.

Phew!! Thanks for taking the time to read my ranting, and I hope someone can lead or push me in the right direction.

Thanks--:wall:

Tell us about all the cables in the ceiling box and all the cables in the switch box including colors of each wire.

Sure, and thanks for the help.

The pancake box in the ceiling has 1 red, white, black and ground, the swtich has 1 red, white, black and ground also.

I pulled the switch out, and here are 2 pics I have taken. I also have 1 pic of the pancake box in the ceiling too.

Thanks again
http://home.comcast.net/~fiily72/images/s1.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~fiily72/images/s2.jpg
http://home.comcast.net/~fiily72/images/s3.jpg

From the look of the switch pics it looks like you are dealing with a 3 way switch.

Using your non-contact voltage detector check to see if you have power on the red wire at the ceiling box. Check after flipping the switches also.

It looks from the picture you sent the sw could be your problem. The silver screw gets the white wire, the red and black get the brass screw. Now I cannot tell, but this looks like a three way sw. this could be your problem also. Is this sw. in the living room, or the dinning room? If so is there another access to the room from a hall way or kitchen? If so is there a sw. on the wall this could be the feed to the other sw. With a three way sw. one wire is feed 14-2 one wire 14-3 going to other sw. and a 14-2 or 14-3 going to light/fan. Make sure the switches are wired right, and it should work. Post back and let us know.

Also to point out that the switch, probably a 3-way, is back-wired. meaning the wires are shoved into the back of the switch unit. I personally find this method lazy and not as secure as wrapping the wire around the screw terminal.
Oh well, that was my 0.02.

The silver screw gets the white wire, the red and black get the brass screw.Not necessarily. One step at a time.

What you tried when you connected the fixture black wire to the ceiling red wire (capping off the ceiling black wire, and connecting ceiling white to fixture white) should have worked. So you either didn't execute this correctly, or you have some other problems. But don't go messing with the switch wires until you conduct some further tests. Start with what pcboss told you to do.

The red wire does have power going to it using my non-contact voltage detector and flipping the switch up and down.

I reconnected the fixture again: white/white, ground/ground, black(from fixture) to red in ceiling and nothing.

I even went crazy and tried every switch in the house and the light still did not come one.

Is it possible that the fan that was there was always on(always hot), and could only be turned off via the pull cords for the light and the fan motor?

Thanks again.

Does the non-contact voltage detector flash on the red wire when the switch is on, and not flash when the switch is off?

Be sure to get the red wire as far as you can from the black wire when doing this test so that the detector isn't being fooled by the black wire.

Does the black wire in the ceiling set off your detector regardless of the position of the switch?

Is there just one wire of each color in the ceiling box? No more?

Make sure that both of the 3-way swithes are fully up or fully down.

Does the light still come on and stay on regardless of the switch position when you connect fixture black to ceiling black?

The red and black both set off the detector regardless of the position of the switch and I separated the black and red about 6 inches away from one another also.

There are no other switches in the living room, other than the 3 in the picture shown.

Only 1 color for each wire, no travelers.

Yes, the light stays on regardless of the switch position when I connect fixture black to ceiling black.

If nothing is making the light go out, what use is the red wire in the ceiling for then?

I am utterly stumped.....

I am utterly stumpedMe too. I'll bet this is something very simple. Double-check your work.

I haven't tried to follow all of the wiring description as yet, but will if needed. But, what I usually do at this point is draw it out. If you can diagram all of the related wiring and fill in notes for what you know, then it usually becomes easy to spot your problem or at least the next move.
I'll be watching,
Bud
Photobucket needs a community chalkboard.

This makes no sense why would there be three 3 way switches in the room with only one group of switches in the room. Common sense would be 3 single pole one for out door light, one for ceiling light one for fan. I still think the problem is in the switch box.