Also your council has responsibility for all housing in your area. Even if you rent your house from a private landlord, the council's role is to make sure that the house is of a decent standard - that it is fit, safe and comfortable. Perhaps a call to the housing department would be in order and try to get them to do all the confrontation stuff.
Electrical Safety Certs and other questions.
- Thread starter zaphriel
- Start date
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Having dealt with them before on poor housing issues, they did nothing despite the house being unfit to live in. I would just put myself forward for a section 21 notice.
All I am after is cleaning up and repairing after the previous tenants and keeping my nose clean and getting on with life. The list of jobs I have done already is pretty ridiculous, I am just keen to get the job done. If I had the money I would have had a sparky in two weeks ago, but then again, if I had the money, I wouldn't be living here....
All I am after is cleaning up and repairing after the previous tenants and keeping my nose clean and getting on with life. The list of jobs I have done already is pretty ridiculous, I am just keen to get the job done. If I had the money I would have had a sparky in two weeks ago, but then again, if I had the money, I wouldn't be living here....
No, will still work, it's just not best practice.
Firstly, thanks to all who replied, I now have a functioning light switch in the bathroom.
I now however have a slightly different problem. When I undid the light fitting I found a significantly larger quantity of wires than I was expecting.
On the fitting I have to replace (a self contained waterproof one, I have been a good girl, promise.) there is a choc block that implies there should be only three cables, live, neutral and earth, as the instructions also imply. But when I opened the existing fitting this mess of crap was inside:-
So if anyone can enlighten me as to why there seem to be three of every cable that would be fantastic. (and preferably what exactly to do with them)
Thank you all for being kind and understanding. It's made a seriously crap few days a lot better
I now however have a slightly different problem. When I undid the light fitting I found a significantly larger quantity of wires than I was expecting.
On the fitting I have to replace (a self contained waterproof one, I have been a good girl, promise.) there is a choc block that implies there should be only three cables, live, neutral and earth, as the instructions also imply. But when I opened the existing fitting this mess of crap was inside:-
So if anyone can enlighten me as to why there seem to be three of every cable that would be fantastic. (and preferably what exactly to do with them)
Thank you all for being kind and understanding. It's made a seriously crap few days a lot better
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What you have there is the classic ceiling rose with 4 terminals. They may have more than one cable entry, but if you count them there are 4.
L, N, E and switched live.
There's an excellent diagram in the lighting Wiki which shows how it works and why there are 3 cables there:
It's actually quite straightforward and logical - the circuit cable runs from one light position to the next, so that explains 2 of the cables - 1 in, and 1 out, and a 3rd one goes down to the switch. The problem there is that usually the cable used for the switch is a normal red/black or brown/blue, and often nothing is done to tag the returning black or blue to show that it's not a neutral, but is in fact a switched live, and a common mistake people make when replacing lights is to assume that all the blacks/blues are neutrals because of their colours, and connect them together.
The other problem is that a light with only 3 terminals cannot directly replace a 4-terminal ceiling rose - you need a 4th terminal for the permanent live.
//www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:rose
Your roses have got 3-core & earth cables there, and I can't see from the photos exactly what's going on.
But in this:
from L to R you have:
1) A terminal with 3 positions - N in, N out, N for the light.
2) A terminal with 3 positions - L in, L out, L down to the switch.
3) A terminal with 2 positions, switched live back from the switch and to the light.
Re the next photo - have got 2 lights worked by the same switch? Or 2-way switching?
L, N, E and switched live.
There's an excellent diagram in the lighting Wiki which shows how it works and why there are 3 cables there:
It's actually quite straightforward and logical - the circuit cable runs from one light position to the next, so that explains 2 of the cables - 1 in, and 1 out, and a 3rd one goes down to the switch. The problem there is that usually the cable used for the switch is a normal red/black or brown/blue, and often nothing is done to tag the returning black or blue to show that it's not a neutral, but is in fact a switched live, and a common mistake people make when replacing lights is to assume that all the blacks/blues are neutrals because of their colours, and connect them together.
The other problem is that a light with only 3 terminals cannot directly replace a 4-terminal ceiling rose - you need a 4th terminal for the permanent live.
//www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:rose
Your roses have got 3-core & earth cables there, and I can't see from the photos exactly what's going on.
But in this:
from L to R you have:
1) A terminal with 3 positions - N in, N out, N for the light.
2) A terminal with 3 positions - L in, L out, L down to the switch.
3) A terminal with 2 positions, switched live back from the switch and to the light.
Re the next photo - have got 2 lights worked by the same switch? Or 2-way switching?
Sorry, should have made it clear, that is the same rose from two angles in an attempt for better clarity.
So to get this straight, there are three of each cable to continue the loop and to send to and from the switch?
So to get this straight, there are three of each cable to continue the loop and to send to and from the switch?
Yup - one coming in from the CU/previous light, one going on to the next light, one to the switch.
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