Hi all. Under a building notice I am about to wire a new kitchen/dining room. I am an industrial electrician by trade but do not have a mass of experience with domestic lighting. Could somebody please take a look at the following diagram and let me know if it all looks okay and similar the usual way that a domestic installer would set it out . Or can it be made simpler. Many thanks
I'm not concentrating too much this morning (!) but two quick overview points: 1. You should NEVER have the smoke alarms on a switch like that. Anybody could turn it off. They should be wired straight off the lighting circuit. Unless you want to put a keyed switch in there. 2. The other sswitches, are they supposed to be working as 2-way switches? If so, for which lights? They wont work as 2-way as far as I can see from your diagram. PS 1mm will be big enough, assuming your light MCB is 6A.
Thanks for the quick response. The smoke detectors are fed from permanent live side of the switch so can't be switched off. The top "rose" is supplying main unswitchd feed to the fist 2 gang switch which is carried over to the 3 gang switch then onto the smoke detector. Maybe I've missed something i will look again. Thanks.
Concur with Baz - 1.0mm is ample - I use to use 1.5mm for lighting circuits etc, never again as designing the circuit/s appropriately can accommodate the 1mm nicely (no more scrunged wires and stuff)
Yes 2 way. Left hand switch on 2 gang and 3 gang for kitchen light. Right hand switch on 2 gang and centre switch on 3 gang for dining room light. Right hand switch on 3 gang for out door light just 1 way switch for outdoor light.
The 2-way wont work for dining room light. There's a conductor missing from the 2G switch. SAme for the kitchen light (I assume the red line that passes over the switch terminal doesn't actually connect there?????) In fact, I cannot see how any of your 2-way switching can work. Using the way that you have laid it out, it should be a bit like this: Basically the live goes in the COM at one end, the light live goes in the COM at the other end and there's two strappers between the L1s and L2s. Nothing more than that. Methinks you need a rethink. Sorry, no it doesn't!
Thanks Bazza. I have done a revision. I know that there are a lot of cables in the back boxes but really want to avoid any junction boxes etc under the floor or extra cables at the lighting points, I have plenty of room for a 47mm back boxes if need be. I just wonder if I'm completely missing some obvious way of making this easier. Here is the revised plan. Thanks again
Excellent. No I won't forget the earth's, just left them off of the drawing to make it clearer. The drawing software is Microsoft Visio. I use it a lot for work, its really straight forward and you can design/add in your own components and symbols.
I use Visio too. If you have an O365 subscription you can add Visio for another £12.00 a month or less if you take an annual subscription.