so I've tried to replace the bathroom light fitting today but there is a crazy amount of wires and I'm confused.com what's worse is that now half the upstairs lights aren't working and the mrs is fuming - please help! There is one switched live, 4 earth, 4 live and 3 neutral. usually I just mirror what the old fitting had but if you look at the pics of the previously fitted light, the neutral and live are in the opposite terminals - crazy. Can anybody point me the right direction? Should it matter if all the neutrals and the live are in the same terminal?
If you know which one is the switched live that one will go to one side of the lamp, all the neutrals will go together and connect to the other side of the lamp and all 4 lives go together in a connector block, same with the earths.
you'd think but it's not working, makes me wonder why the previous fitting was wired back to front, makes no sense why the blue is going to switch live and brown to the neutral (see pic2) also can anybody explain why the other upstairs lights are no longer working?
There are 4 red and 4 black. Presumably 1 of each are upstream, 1 of each are downstream, and 1 of each are for the loop-down switch. What are the others for - a fan?
yeah there is also a fan, silly question but do all live and neutral wires need to be touching in the same terminal, ie if I use a terminating block for the 4 live do they need to be together?
Not unusual to have a ‘crazy’ number of wires at the ceiling rose Also not unusual to have a crazy number of posts on lighting wiring issues ! Must be some corrolation there I recon ? Likely that 3 cables are for lighting circuit and maybe 4th is feed to a fan or shaver socket or cabinet light - but doesn’t matter really As you say, live and Nuetral to light fitting are reversed at the rose. If a simple bulb and pendant / light fitting, although not right, this will have no effect and bulb will still light Can be dangerous with a screw cap bulb as outer part of lamp holder will now be live, instead of shielded center pin (again bulb will work, but bluddy dangerous What type of light have you now fitted and have you kept live/Nuetral reversed or corrected ? If uv fitted an led lamp / fitting, many will only work with correct polarity Are you sure that the red band on ‘switched live’ didnt slip off and uv mixed up the black cores ? Can test with a simple neon screwdriver if no other test equipment available And yes my suggestion will be ridiculed but if ur a diy’er like me, we ain’t got a garage full of Fluke and Megga testers but yes, we do have a neon screwdriver at our disposal Limited in use I fully understand but to ID switched live, it will do the biz
Not surprised you call yourself DIY. About 50 years ago it was common for fan to be wired in T+E from bathroom ceiling rose and be controlled by lighting switch. Don't know if relevant here, but I would like to know what every wire did before working on installation.
It’s simple The black with the red sleeve. That is the switched live. That goes to the live on the light. All the remaining blacks go together in one terminal. Also the neutral to the light connects to all these blacks The four reds all go together in one terminal The four earth wires all go together in one terminal Do that and report back. I can’t see where the fan connected on the old ceiling Rose. But we’ll done for taking photos before it was all disconnected. PS you may need the next larger size of terminal block!
Don''t know whether it would have any bearing on current case, but it was previous practice that black coming back from switch was connected to red going to fan as well as being connected to light. If it was me I'd like to know what 4th set of T+E did.
Yep I am diy, don’t pretend to be anything else So are you saying that in the last 50 years, no bathroom fans have been wired in T&E from ceiling rose ? Next you will be saying that every fan ever fitted has been fitted exactly to the letter stated by manufacturer with isolator and/or 3A fuse protection I did say ‘maybe’ 4th cable is fan, shaver socket, cabinet light, etc Without testing you never know what’s been lashed up to the rose. Could be tv amp or even a shower pump ? Who knows eh ?
50 years ago they used to **** in a bucket outside, unlikely there was a light operated fan back then. I would say its entirely possible that one of the T&E's is for a fan, especially as there is an extra cable than normal there and the OP has infact said there is a fan in the room, so my guess would be that 3 reds go together, 3 neutrals go together and the other red whichever it may be goes in with the flagged black wire. If you put the 4 reds together and the fan runs constantly then you need to disconnect one red at a time until the fan stops, but the rest of the lights stay on. PS no matter how clever you think you are always note down what goes where, it just saves so much agro and hair puling later on in the day.
Another scenario is that at some point in time a fan was disconnected from the ceiling rose because because the original fan was dangerous or redundant, and since then somebody has reconnected the wires. In my experience the most likely reason for there being a 4th set of T+E from a bathroom ceiling rose is to supply a light switch operated fan.
Without seeing it for myself it could be for anything, it may be a permanent feed for a fan with a built in pull cord, it could be a humdistat fan or a simple switched fan. or it could be for a loft light or security light and the fan is hacked into a bedroom socket the other side of the wall, who knows.
Or a tv Ariel booster Or a vanity unit light Or a shaver socket Or a fan Or a light in the loft Or a shower pump Or hydroponic kit for growing weed Or or or or or or or or etc