Outside lights without smashing hole in the walls?

[MyNameGoesHere]

My house has just been re-wired to the 17th. Shiny new Wylex box, it's joy to behold.

Unfortunately, the power that be has decided she wants outside lights - one at the front and one at the back. I’ve got several spare ways on the CU and it seems good practice to have the outside lights on their own MCB.

Would it be acceptable to run them from a 6A MCB, given that it’s on its own circuit, or will it still require bashing holes for 3A FCUs before the electrician comes back?

Or how about a 3A FCU just outside the CU before the cables disappear into the roof (CU is under the stairs)? Just had the walls plastered up and painted you see, so a bit reluctant to get them all dusty again.

If anyone has an opinion on how the problem could be solved, I’ll look clever when I call up the electrician.

Thanks.

 

[Sarahspark]

Why not leave the worry to the Electrician?

Sarah

 

[MyNameGoesHere]

Good point.

But I did all the channeling and cold-chiselling-out of the sockets in the first place, before the wiring was put in. I guess I'm emotionally involved now. Too many skinned knuckles and lungfulls of brick dust to let go.

Hmm. I hope that doesn't sound too weird.

 

[thomo27]

Do you want these lights to be switched from downstairs or are you wanting them to be security PIR lights ?

If security lights then your approach could be to see if there are any double sockets upstairs that are near where you want the outside light to be ?

If so you could open up the socket providing it isnt a spur and run some 2.5 T&E cable to a FCU and then 1.5 through a drilled hole to the outside light


If you mount a new MCB then you are going to have some cable routing to do , other option is to break into the upstairs lighting for your mains to the lights

 

[Fred_Fanackapan]

Or fit solar powered PIR lights.

http://www.toolstation.com/shop/Lig...olar+Sensor+Light+With+PIR/d220/sd2663/p35236

 

[MyNameGoesHere]

Thomo27 - thanks for that. With the electrics being shiny and new I was a bit hesitant to have things spurred out of sockets. There are still some floorboards up upstairs, so running cable from a new MCB shouldn't pose a problem for anyone. The only problem with that is it would have to be a 6A MCB for the lights. Would that be wrong?

And Fred - thanks for that too. I had no idea solar powered PIR lights existed. I hope they're more reliable than the crappy solar powered lights I stuck in the garden last summer.

 

[Lectrician]

Why would you want to fuse them down to 3amps?

Do you fuse all your internal lights to 3amp too?

Just a cable from the consumer unit to your outside lights is fine, via a switch obviously.

If your lights are PIR operated, then a switch by the consumer unit is best to avoid them being turned off accidently.

 

[MyNameGoesHere]

You make a good point there. I don't have an answer for that.

I guess as they'll only be drawing half an amp or so, I thought a 3A fuse in there would be a handy guard against any overcurrent.

 

[JohnD]

why not run them off the existing lighting circuit?