Help! Ceiling Lights

[jdparry1978]

Hi,

Please could someone help me. I am in the process of fitting 2 new ceiling roses in my dining room. The downstairs to my house is on a seperate ring to my upstairs.

I previously had spotlights in there.

Currently the wires are not connected to anything for both roses. I have put the fuse back into my board and only the light in my kitchen works. The hall and living room light are not working.

I don't want to go any further with wiring up the ceiling roses until I know if I have a problem or not. If someone could give me some advice on this it would be greatly appreciated.

I eagerly await a response.

 

[a3]

Whilst you are waiting for some of our electrical members to come along and help out, perhaps you could take some photos and upload them so as to help them help you fix your problem ?

Pictrure's speak a thousand words

 

[betty swollocks]

As said a picture would be a great help

How any wires are at each living room light point?, what colours are they? are there any markings?

It could easily be that you are using a 'loop in loop out' wiring system (which you don't need to worry about its simply means power is linked from each lighting point) and if you have split all the wires in the living room you may have simply isolated the power supply to your other downstairs light, if this is correct then when the lights are correctly fitted the supply to these lights will be reconnected

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

It sounds like you have wiring done to the loop in method. You have broken the circuit and the light working is before the light you have removed. The main thing here is, does one of the black (or blue)  cables have a red (or brown) marker on it ?  

Do you have a total  of 9  cable cores  including the earths ?

If so TURN OFF THE CIRCUIT, join all the earth cables together in a connector block ( these will connect to E of the light). Then join all the reds together in a separate connector block.

Now  if you join all the blacks together, when you turn the room light on it will blow the fuse/circuit breaker  (if you leave the switch off the other lights should all work) If one of the cables is black marked red that is kept by itself and it goes to the L of the light. The remaining 2 blacks connect together and go to the N of the  light.

Alternatively do you have a twin red coloured cable ?

 

[ProDave]

As others have said, photo's might help identify the wires.

But for the benefit of anyone else reading this thread, a golden rule when working on light fittings is make a note of EXACTLY how the old light fitting is wired either by drawing a diagram or taking a photo BEFORE you remove the old light fitting.

It's common to have several cables at a light fitting, and you do NOT simply connect all reds together etc

 

[ParkySparky]

Red to red, black to black, blew to bits!!!!!

 

[Phaze]

Hi,

Currently the wires are not connected to anything for both roses. I have put the fuse back into my board and only the light in my kitchen works. The hall and living room light are not working.

Hi, would I be correct in assuming you now potentially have a plethora of live wires sticking out of the ceiling? hmmm, not ideal!

As others have said pictures would be a help, and even if the switch wires are identified with red/brown sleeving/tape, it would be negligent of me to tell you where to connect them to, as I myself would not connect them without first verifying them whilst dead. My advice would be to get a sparky to have a look. It should take him minutes to tell you what's what up there.

 

[Barx]

Hi, would I be correct in assuming you now potentially have a plethora of live wires sticking out of the ceiling? hmmm, not ideal!

As others have said pictures would be a help, and even if the switch wires are identified with red/brown sleeving/tape, it would be negligent of me to tell you where to connect them to, as I myself would not connect them without first verifying them whilst dead. My advice would be to get a sparky to have a look. It should take him minutes to tell you what's what up there.

Well, technically, chances are there is 1 live wire as the others are connected. :innocent

 

[binky]

no technical about it, there's alive wire up there somewhere that fed the downlighters. You need a basic multimeter - be very careful and test for 240v on one of the cables. If you aren't sure about doing that, get a local sparky.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

• Dont bother, his not coming back.

 

[binky]

how do you know?

 

[ProDave]

I would say the safest way for a novice, is to be 101% SURE everthing is turned off, then using a meter on hms  range, identify which pair is the switch drop.  then you can re connect it all. No live testing needed.

 

[binky]

fair point -I'm just used to doing it live then finding sw line, but then I have the tools. I also like to look for a back feed just in case there's 2 lives

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

how do you know?

;

 

[batty]

Say a prayer he may have electrocuted himself.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Funny, i was going to post again, 'Told you'  just when you replied.