[wiringnewb]

I have a real mess here. I am living in a place where the landlord will not fix anything. So my son and iI decided to tackle the job. I have a three switch gang box with a switch for the front porch light and one for the receptacle next to the door and one for the ceiling fan light fixture. Two of the rocker plate switches were broken and the third one has been replaced with a regular switch. The old rocker plates are something I had never seen the inside of before. I bought 2 more single pole switches to replace the rocker plates. The wiring that was inside has three solid strands. One black, one white and one solid copper.
There were two separate wires going to the first switch. There is just one for the second switch and two again for the third switch. The white had several strands capped togeather and some of them had the white wire going into the switches. The copper grounds were all hooked up to the ground screws/contacts. The black (hot) wires were all hooked to the switches and separate wires ran them in series from each switch. During disassembly some of the wires got mixed up. The Outside cover of each wire was marked 1, 2 & 3 So they were not mixed up but there was no mark or way to tell which of the two wires goes where for the switches that had two wire sets. Son said that's okay he remembers what was what. I see he put ALL the white wires togeather and I clearly saw some of the white wires hooked to switches. Sooooo when he put them togeather they all three now turn off everything they used to and some other receptacles in the living room. What a mess up! He now has it wired this way...

Wire 1 switch 1 (to the receptacle)
Ground screw - ground wire
Top pole - black wire
White wire all capped together

Wire 2 switch 1 (to the receptacle)
Ground screw - ground wire
Bottom pole - black wire
White wire all capped together

Wire 3 switch 2 (to the fan)
Ground screw - ground wire
Bottom pole - black wire
White wire all capped together

Wire 4 switch 3 (to the outside light)
Ground screw - ground wire
Top pole - black wire
White wire all capped together

Wire 5 switch 3 (to the outside light)
Ground screw - ground wire
Bottom pole - black wire
White wire all capped together

Black single wire from bottom pole of first switch to top pole of second switch
Black single wire from bottom pole of second switch to top pole of third switch

He insists that the black wires were like that but I think that puts the switches in series? Shouldn't they be individual except for the power(hot) wire?
Help!

[hkstroud]

Detailed though it is, I'm having trouble following your description. You are correct that your son has the switches wired in a series.
Are any switches 3-way?
A wire is a wire. A cable is 2 or more wires in an outer covering.

What it sounds like is that you have 5 cables coming into the box. One is the power coming to the box. One is the cable going to the switched outlet. One is the cable going to the other outlets. One takes power to the porch light. One is the switch leg of the fan/light.

Do you know which is the hot cable? Do you know which is the fan/light cable?

If so, connect the black of the fan/light cable to one screw of the switch (doesn't matter which). Connect the white of the fan/light cable to the other screw.
Connect the remaining white wires together with a wire nut. Connect the hot black and the black going to the non switched outlet and add 2 pig tails(a short piece of black wire). Connect the pig tails to switches.

Connect the remaining black wires (should be 2) to switches(doesn't matter which screw.)

So your problem is to identify which is the hot, which is the fan and which is the switched outlet.

If I am correct the fan switch leg does not take power from this box. The power comes from the fan/light on the white and goes back on the black. You can test this by touching them together and the light should burn.

[creahands]

Use a volt meter to test the 5 cables.

If u have 2 cables with 110 volts, one is power from fuse/breaker panel box and other is power coming from one of the lights/fan or outlet.

Wire switches as HK described in post #2

Good luck

Chuck