An Electrician has told me that my lighting circuit earth wire is not grounded or earthed

[richard stevens]

I live in a 1890's three bedroom terrace house and believe that I have either junction box wiring or loop in circuit. I recently had an electrician around to fit an brass ceiling pendant and rose, this electrician told me that the earth wire in my lighting circuit is not grounded. He consequently did not fit the brass fittings. He said that he would recommend reconnecting my earth wire and believed that it had been disconnected at a junction box. He said that he would first have to find the right junction box (which could take several hours and lots of disruption, worst case scenario) then test it and reconnect it.

I would prefer to get my lighting circuit earthed but I am concerned about having an open ended bill with no guarantee of results. I have a few questions.

1) From what my electrician has said presumably someone has disconnected my earth wire and surely the only reason someone would do that is if it was unsafe? and so finding the junction box would not resolve the issue.

2) I guess maybe another scenario is that my earth wire has broken and that is why it is no longer grounded?

3) As my electrician only looked at my hallway light and socket, does that mean that the rest of my lighting circuit could be earthed?

I would appreciate any advice.

Regards

Richard

 

[Murdoch]

Hum ... Did the sparky open up the fuse board to see if the circuit actually had an earth in it? 

That should be the first step.

And if there is an earth then tests at fittings or use of a wander lead to check continuity.

 

[richard stevens]

Hi Murdoch

No he didn't open up the fuse board but took a test from either the light fitting or switch

 

[ProDave]

I presume the cable at the light fitting had an earth core, but he is reporting that the earth does not appear to be connected anywhere?

Your electrician is probably correct in most of what he says.  If there is an earth wire present at the light, but it is not connected, then he has some fault finding to do to locate and correct the faults(s)  It is unfortunately impossible to say that investigation is going to take X hours and cosy y £ to complete.  he may be lucky and find the fault quickly, he may spend all day and not find it.

With a house built in 1890 it's anyone's guess when it was last rewired.  But it appears he has formed a judgement from he has seen, that it is likely to be wired what is often known as "spider fashion" where all the light cables and all the switch cables go to one big junction box somewhere. In fact often more than one, usually one per floor, so a 2 storey house would have two of them.  The one for downstairs lighting would normally be somewhere in the void between the downstairs ceiling and the upstairs floorboards.  The upstairs junction box would usually be somewhere in the loft.

He is right that the first task is to locate the junction box. Apart from it usually being somewhere near the middle of the house, it could be anywhere. If you have glued down fitted carpets or laminate floor then the task of locating it becomes harder and more disruptive, but in any event he has to remove some floor covering, look for loose floor boards, lift them and have a look, and if it's not there try again.

Of course your local knowledge may help. If you have been in the house some time and have either had floorboards up yourself or other tradesmen have,  you might recall seeing a large plastic box with a lot of wires leading into it.

And when he finds it  he then has to try and find the fault. It could be nothing more than a wire has come out of a terminal. The methods used in the padt for terminating the earth cables often involved just twisting them together.
 

 

[Doc Hudson]

It could also be that the whole of your lighting circuits have never had an earth connection back to the fuse box if old wiring from pre 1966. It is not uncommon to find DIY light fittings added-on to an existing circuit with a mix of newer twin and earth cable supplied from older twin with no earth, which gives the symptoms you describe of an earth wire at an accessory not connected to anything. There is no quick and easy simple fix to resolve these sort of problems without some significant investigation work being undertaken.

Doc H.

 

[richard stevens]

Thanks guys for your help. I going to lift up the floor boards in one of the bedrooms, see if I can find any juction boxes and take it from there.

 

[ProDave]

Look for somewhere where two adjacent floor boards have previously been lifted. The landing is a common place but it depends on the house layout.
 

 

[Murdoch]

Hi Murdoch

No he didn't open up the fuse board but took a test from either the light fitting or switch

Then this is where you or a competent spark should start...... lifting floor boards may be completely pointless if the circuit doesn't have a cpc back at the fuseboard!

 

[Doc Hudson]

As Murdoch points out randomly lifting boards could be a waste of time.  I would start with a bit of continuity testing around all of the accessories, (switches & lights) to identify first of all which accessories do or don't have an earth continuity to them. In electrical terms this would be done by an R1+R2 test on the whole circuit. Probably a couple of hours work, depending upon the size of the property. If none of the accessories have an earth continuity then there is no point looking for junction boxes. Whereas if some do and some don't the physical room positions may point to the most probable locations where boards may need lifting. Dependant upon the labour rates in your local area I would guess this preliminary testing would cost somewhere between £40 to £90 for between 2 or 3 hours investigations. (e.g. 2 hours @ £20 per hour or 3 hours @ £30 per hour)

Doc H. 

 

[binky]

who works for £20 an hour these days?

 

[Murdoch]

who works for £20 an hour these days?

hum... especially down south in Reading.

TBH - if the OP was closer to me I would have offered to go and check inside the CU for free to to check the very basics!

 

[M107]

That'll be me then if it's in Reading  :innocent

Richard where in Reading are you, I might be able to give some guidance as to where you might find the junction box......

For example Beecham Rd 2 bed terraced  rewire: I found the 1960's lighting JB for ground floor was under the boards in the front bedroom built in cupboard above the staircase. Upstairs was in the loft same location but above the cupboard.