I've just been looking at an interesting situation with a three-bulb chandelier/pendant style light fitting, which until recently was fitted with two LED candle bulbs (around 5.5W) and one old 40W incandescent candle bulb. It was working normally until the old 40W bulb blew. At that point, the two remaining LED bulbs continued working as normal, but as soon as the light was turned off at the wall, one of those LED bulbs stayed on, though with some flickering and reduced brightness. If the dud is replaced with a new LED bulb, the situation persists with that one bulb lit when the switch is off. I managed to find a working 40W bulb, and when that is fitted instead of the LED one as the third bulb, all bulbs stay off as expected when the switch is off.
This is in the house of my elderly relatives who are understandably concerned about safety when it turns out that an 'off' light switch isn't really off and wondered if there might be an issue with the wiring. However, the wall switch in question is a fairly old 2-gang 2-way unit with a light sensor for one circuit that is designed to come on at dusk for a set number of hours (pics attached). So although I don't fully understand how this is happening, I'm wondering if the issue is that the switch was designed to handle a minimum load of (e.g.) 40 watts but clearly 3 x LED bulbs fall well short of that. I could try swapping the switch for a conventional one and see if that resolves the issue, but they do like to use the security feature sometimes. So really I'm just looking for views on whether that switch really is likely to be the issue, and if so, are there any modern equivalents that would cope with a low load of 15-20W (i.e. three LED bulbs).
If it's time to call in an electrician instead to get things checked out properly then fair enough, although said relatives are a bit worried about it turning into a bigger job (e.g. major rewire) if someone decides they don't like the look of the wiring or it turns something isn't compliant with the latest regs. From my perspective, obviously I want to make sure things are safe for them but also not have them forking out more than is necessary to resolve the issue. Any thoughts?
This is in the house of my elderly relatives who are understandably concerned about safety when it turns out that an 'off' light switch isn't really off and wondered if there might be an issue with the wiring. However, the wall switch in question is a fairly old 2-gang 2-way unit with a light sensor for one circuit that is designed to come on at dusk for a set number of hours (pics attached). So although I don't fully understand how this is happening, I'm wondering if the issue is that the switch was designed to handle a minimum load of (e.g.) 40 watts but clearly 3 x LED bulbs fall well short of that. I could try swapping the switch for a conventional one and see if that resolves the issue, but they do like to use the security feature sometimes. So really I'm just looking for views on whether that switch really is likely to be the issue, and if so, are there any modern equivalents that would cope with a low load of 15-20W (i.e. three LED bulbs).
If it's time to call in an electrician instead to get things checked out properly then fair enough, although said relatives are a bit worried about it turning into a bigger job (e.g. major rewire) if someone decides they don't like the look of the wiring or it turns something isn't compliant with the latest regs. From my perspective, obviously I want to make sure things are safe for them but also not have them forking out more than is necessary to resolve the issue. Any thoughts?
