Had a nasty short in a 5A lighting circuit in our new house. Fuse was blowing weekly. The end of an old steel pipe under the bathroom floor was cutting into the cable supplying the kitchen ceiling lights every time someone stepped on a floor board. Took us a while to work out what was happening until wife stepped on offending floorboard to accompanying flash, bang and smell of burning plastic. On lifting the floorboard we found the cable had been mashed by the pipe and the plastic insulation had melted.
Rushed out this morning to B&Q and bought a 5A connector that contained two brass connecting blocks in a plastic housing with cable clamps at each end.
Removed the offending pipe and cut out the mashed section of lighting cable to wire into the connector. The cable contained two 1mm insulated single core copper conductors, one red and one black. In between was a bare copper 1mm earth conductor. Now I thought a 5 amp lighting circuit would be just two wires? Do I need to connect the earth as well?
At the moment I have wired just the two live conductors and trimmed off the earth conductors but am worried that I have done the wrong thing. I am running out of slack on the cable and want to avoid rewiring if I can. Otherwise I will have to buy a short length of lighting cable and splice it in with two connectors. Not ideal!
I can confirm that this circuit is purely for lighting, serving 8 ceiling mounted lights on the ground floor. All are 15w low energy bulbs so the load is about 120w (0.5 amps). The fuse is of the old fashioned melting wire type held down by two screws in a ceramic block. I am using 5A wire for this.
I can buy a 13amp connector with three connecting blocks to do this job if necessary.
Rushed out this morning to B&Q and bought a 5A connector that contained two brass connecting blocks in a plastic housing with cable clamps at each end.
Removed the offending pipe and cut out the mashed section of lighting cable to wire into the connector. The cable contained two 1mm insulated single core copper conductors, one red and one black. In between was a bare copper 1mm earth conductor. Now I thought a 5 amp lighting circuit would be just two wires? Do I need to connect the earth as well?
At the moment I have wired just the two live conductors and trimmed off the earth conductors but am worried that I have done the wrong thing. I am running out of slack on the cable and want to avoid rewiring if I can. Otherwise I will have to buy a short length of lighting cable and splice it in with two connectors. Not ideal!
I can confirm that this circuit is purely for lighting, serving 8 ceiling mounted lights on the ground floor. All are 15w low energy bulbs so the load is about 120w (0.5 amps). The fuse is of the old fashioned melting wire type held down by two screws in a ceramic block. I am using 5A wire for this.
I can buy a 13amp connector with three connecting blocks to do this job if necessary.