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Thanks. We are aware of this. We probably should have bulldozed the house...it has a zillion things out of code.

Jimbo, thanks. That was my first thought when I saw this. I'm going to get it cleaned up by an electrician, but I'm going to do some crawling around in very tight spaces first to try to find why the heck they did this in the first place.

Thank you hj. I embarassingly have typos in my very pretty diagram. It's actually 8 and 12 connected and 10 and 14 connected. Do you have any ideas on an application that might have required this? Security systems or cameras perhaps? I would just really like to know why they did this before I...

Thank you very much big2bird for all your help.

Thank you, Chad. Yes, I will get an electrician. It seems very deliberate, so I would really like to know what types of applications might this make sense for and try to narrow it down some more before I bring them out here. With all the help everyone here has given me, it'll be a big help...

JWelectric...ok I spent all this time making a pretty diagram and then I mislabelled it. I don't blame you for just wiping your hands of me. Sheez. It's actually 8 and 12 powering the first switches, and 10 and 14 powering the others. I'm so sorry, and no wonder you all think I'm an idiot. But...

They are connected that way. I know that sounds crazy but it's absolutely true. As proof, when the lights attached to one of them are on, I need to have BOTH #12 and #14 flipped off for the lights to go off. EITHER circuit breaker on powers the circuit. Again, I know this is crazy and that's why...

Here are photos...a diagram of the three dual switches, a photo of the garage circuit panel with CB #8,#10, #12, and #14 all flipped off, a photo of two of the switches (one is removed completely, and the others have the wires loosened).

Please know I will not do anything without getting an electrician, but this situation is so bizarre that if I can do some investigation and perhaps find what this went to, I can focus the effort and we can get to the bottom of it. Otherwise I fear I will spend over $1000 and he won't be able to...

I don't think I'm totally lost, but I'm clearly not an expert and I don't even know exactly what the standard language is. I meant CB #8 and CB #10 power the one dual switch, and CB #12 and CB #14 power the other two dual switches. You all are providing me great clues and insight as to what...

Yes, I'm talking about circuit breaker numbers. I'm sorry I'm not using the right language to describe this. I put all that information in, because in googling this, I found something that said where the CBs were located in the panel tells you what phase they are.

Thank you! I will work on getting a picture, but you may have touched on something. The top and bottom switch in each of the three are DEFINITELY simultaneously powered by two different circuit breakers and they are not shorted, so by what you've said, they must be the same phase. I read that...

I cannot find what's on the other end. It will be very expensive for an electrician to do it. I'm not certain it's worth the expense, give it's been like this for many years and most of the switches have nothing connected to them. I may just cap off the extra wires in the box, and just make sure...

Yes, I'm certain. Disconnecting the wires from one pair of switches shows that the bottom switch had one hot feed, the top switch had another hot feed. With the jumper in place, this meant both switches were getting power from both, and this is why BOTH breakers must be off for the lights to not...

Thank you very much. Let me ask you...so does it ever make sense to feed a dual switch for lights with two circuits and not remove the jumper?

In our 1969 home that we've had 7 years, we have a mystery. There are 3 dual switches in one switch box by our back door (so 6 switches total), and until recently, we could not find anything that they control. We just found that ONE of the switches controls some outdoor light boxes from which...