Hi all, just a quick background first...When we moved into our house 8 years ago, the extractor fan above our hob worked fine, and then just stopped working one day. We have spotlights in our kitchen ceiling, each running off its own 12v transformer and we began to have problems with one light in particular, the bulbs didn't seem to last very long - I pulled the bulb and wires down from the ceiling and noticed that the plastic chockblock had completely melted and fallen apart, and the surrounding insulating tape was all scorched. I checked the wiring with a live indicator "pen" and all seemed to be ok. Recently we had a problem with some of the other bulbs, so I switched out all the transformers for new ones, and thats when I noticed that one of the neutral wires going back into the light that originally had problems was live.
While testing it i knocked the wire with the pen and the lights in the utility room next to the kitchen flickered and there was a spark between the neutral cables and the now live neutral in the same block. I turned off the lights in the utility and the neutral was no longer live. However if the lights in the kitchen are off, and the utility ones are on, the neutral becomes live again.
This must've been what melted the chockblock previously but the other lights were turned off at the time, so the neutral wire wasn't live. I plan to get a qualified electrician in to take a look, but I have a few questions I just wanted to run past people:
1) I assume that the lighting circuit should not be wired this way has anyone seen this before? Is this type of problem straightforward for a professional to rectify (hopefully without pulling my ceiling down to get to the wires!).
2) I suspect my extractor fan may be connected to the lighting circuit - is this the done thing? from what I've read I believe it only pulls around 3 amps.
I'm wondering if a break in the cable for the extractor may be responsible for both the fan not working and the live neutral as the cable to the fan is not showing as live. I know the extractor fan works as I cut the cable and put a plug on the end and it worked fine.
Any advice/guidance would be warmly received
Many thanks
Nimp
While testing it i knocked the wire with the pen and the lights in the utility room next to the kitchen flickered and there was a spark between the neutral cables and the now live neutral in the same block. I turned off the lights in the utility and the neutral was no longer live. However if the lights in the kitchen are off, and the utility ones are on, the neutral becomes live again.
This must've been what melted the chockblock previously but the other lights were turned off at the time, so the neutral wire wasn't live. I plan to get a qualified electrician in to take a look, but I have a few questions I just wanted to run past people:
1) I assume that the lighting circuit should not be wired this way has anyone seen this before? Is this type of problem straightforward for a professional to rectify (hopefully without pulling my ceiling down to get to the wires!).
2) I suspect my extractor fan may be connected to the lighting circuit - is this the done thing? from what I've read I believe it only pulls around 3 amps.
I'm wondering if a break in the cable for the extractor may be responsible for both the fan not working and the live neutral as the cable to the fan is not showing as live. I know the extractor fan works as I cut the cable and put a plug on the end and it worked fine.
Any advice/guidance would be warmly received
Many thanks
Nimp