Hello All, I'm looking to understand how my stairs and hall lighting is wired up, or rather how it should be wired as I have little faith in the wiring of my house as its rather old, but also even to my untrained eyes some of the practices that in my house are suspect The situation is I have two pendant lights, one at the bottom of the stairs and the other at the top, with two switches again top and bottom of the stairs. I’d like to point out that this is just for my known knowledge. Many thanks in advance.
Basically I’d like to know what the circuit diagram would look like and what type of wire would be used in an ideal situation.
Probably best that you have a look at this. Followed by this Happy to clarify anything you don’t understand.
Thanks for the response, it did help a fair bit. So given my situation would the circuit look like this? (see attached/below) Again I'm trying to understand what it should look like in the real world application (i.e. what wires go where sort of thing), this is for more my own understanding more than anything else as i dont want to be a clueless home owner.
Are the top and bottom lights switched at the same time? If so they're wired in parallel. Your wiring circuit is incomplete - I can't see the incoming live and neutral connections. Have a look at this
This may help, Step 1: The first step is to wire up the light pendant. The first length of cable will be from the supply to the light itself. Usually the light base or pendant provides all the terminals necessary to wire up the lighting circuit. If this is not the case, push-in or strip connectors are the preferred way of connecting up the circuit. Connect the supply Line conductor to the spare (L) terminal and connect the Neutral conductor to the N terminal, together with the lamps Neutral wire. Do not forget to connect the Earth conductors to the Earth terminal provided! Remember; DO NOT connect this cable to the live supply! This must only be done after the whole circuit is finished and fully tested to comply with BS 7671. Step 2: The next length of the Twin&Earth cable will run from the light to the first two-way switch. Connect the Line (brown) wire to the L terminal, together with the supply cable Line wire and connect the blue wire with the brown sleeving to the SWL terminal together with the lamps Line wire. Do not forget to use brown sleeving on the blue wire! This is needed to indicate that an otherwise Neutral wire (blue) is now being used as a switched Line wire. Once connected the light pendant should look like this . Do not forget to connect the Earth conductors to the Earth terminal provided! Step 3: Now it is time for the switching arrangement to be connected up. For wiring a two way switch 3 Core&Earth cable is used. This cable consists of three cores –brown, grey and black, which are all Line colours and an Earth wire. Connect the Line (brown) wire coming from the light together with the 3 Core&Earth cable black wire, in to the L1 terminal of the two-way switch. Connect the blue wire with the brown sleeving coming from the light, to the L2 terminal, together with the 3 Core&Earth cable grey wire. Finally, connect the 3 Core&Earth cable brown wire in to the C (common) terminal. This is how the two-way switch wiring should look like: Do not forget to connect the Earth conductors to the Earth terminal provided! Step 4. Now it is time to wire up the second two-way switch. Connect the black wire coming from the first two-way switch to the L1 terminal, connect the grey wire to the L2 terminal and connect the brown wire to the C (common) terminal. Once connected it should look like this: Do not forget to connect the Earth conductors to the Earth terminal provided! Once tested and connected to the live supply the lighting circuit will be operational.