We are removing walls to turn 4 tiny rooms into one large room with a center column that will have electrical. The resulting room will have a main entrance from the front, a patio door, a stairway, and two doors to adjoining rooms. There will probably be 4 lighting 'zones' in the room. According to the NEC, does each doorway require a 3-way switch, and if so, can it be just for the zone that it enters into, or will I need a bank of them for all 4 zones at each point of entry?
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In any single zone is "on", will that provide enough light to safely get around the room in an emergency (assuming that it is dark outside and that you are not already familiar with the details of the room)? – manassehkatz-Moving 2 Codidact Oct 17 '21 at 19:49
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Based on the answers to your related question it seems reasonable to say that "at every entrance to the room there must be a switch which controls a light." Or, said another way, "one or more switches which control one or more lights."
It's not required by code to be able to control all possible lights from all possible entrances -- one just needs to be able to turn on enough light to navigate the room and safely reach additional switches wherever they may be. There could be a dedicated light and switch corresponding to each entrance.
That leads to a lot of walking around the space to switch all the lights; 3-way switching provides convenience. In your case, full-matrix 3-way switching of every light zone from every entrance would lead to large banks of switches and a whole lot of wiring.
You can choose which light zones you want to control from each entrance; the rule is just that you have to be able to control something from every entrance.
Greg Hill
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Run WiFi controlled lights or even put in a motion sensor light in there if it is big enough. and simply have a backup light available to be switched on in case the motion sensor one stopped working. – Nelson Oct 17 '21 at 23:12
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