LESLIE: Pam in Missouri is on the line about an occupancy sensor switch and has a question about installing a dimmer, a great do-it-yourself project. How can we help you, Pam?
PAM: I have a room that has fluorescent lighting in it and there’s two entries into that room. So there’s a light switch on each door, so it’s a two-way switch. Can I put a sensor on that so that when you walk in and walk out, the lights come on and go off?
TOM: Are you asking me if you can? Can you put an occupancy sensor switch on that?
PAM: Yes.
TOM: Is your concern that you want the lights to come on automatically or is your concern that you don’t want people to leave the lights on when no one is in the room?
PAM: Both.
TOM: Well, I guess you could use an motion sensor switch there but you would need to set it in vacancy mode, not occupancy mode. See, in occupancy mode, the light comes on when there’s motion. So if you had a three-way, what could happen is you walk in the room, the switch closest to you picks up your motion, turns the lights on. You continue halfway through the room until the one on the other side picks it up and turns the lights off, so that wouldn’t work too well.
A better option might be to just replace one side of it – just one of the switches – with an occupancy sensor but set it in what’s called the “vacancy mode.” So what that means is you manually turn the light switch on but if there’s no motion in the room, it will automatically go off.
So we use these, for example, in the bedrooms upstairs at our house because kids turn lights on but as we all know, kids don’t turn the lights off. So, if you set the occupancy sensor switch in the vacancy mode, they can turn the lights on but then they’ll go off, depending on the period of monitoring you set. They’ll either go off 1, 5, 15 or 30 minutes later.
PAM: Oh, OK. Alright. That would work. Thank you.
TOM: Hope that helps you out and thanks so much for calling us at 1-888-MONEY-PIT.
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