Hall and landing light

[sharonmarie]

Help.... This is really beginning to do my head in..!! Please can someone give me some advise on this matter.... I have a two switches (one in the hall and one at the top of the landing) which should ideally work one light at the top of the landing.. However since I changed the light switches over, I can't get then to work properly... I know it's my fault as I should have taken a photo of the wiring before I went in head first..!! I have looked at the other comments on this website which all mention the new colour cables, but unfortunately I have to sort out old ones .. red, black and neutral ones...and I'm a bit confused.. No matter what I do the best I can get is that I can switch the light on downstairs and then off up stairs, but in the morning I have to switch the light on again upstatirs so that I can turn it off downstairs ready for later that evening..!! Is it me being stupid, what am I missing??

[Dippy]

What do you mean by "I changed the light switches over"? You swapped them or put in new ones?

Also what do you mean by "red, black and neutral ones"? Do you really mean red, black and yellow?

Unless it is obvious (e.g. you have changed changeover switches to single-throw switches), then you'll need to identify the wires again. Do you have a voltmeter?

[Lectrician]

Dippy wrote:

What do you mean by "I changed the light switches over"? You swapped them or put in new ones? Also what do you mean by "red, black and neutral ones"? Do you really mean red, black and yellow?

You sure on that





Can you tell us what colours you have in each switch?? Photo would be great.

Single switch top and bottom? Doesn't do the hall as well?

Typically, it would be Yellow to common on both switches. Blue to L2 on both switches. Red to L1 on both switches.

There will also be another Red and Black - Put these in the L1 and L2 with the other Red and Blue.

[Space cat]

Oops, oops and thrice oops!

First things first. When you say red, black and neutral, do you really mean red, black and earth? Depending upon the quality of the original job, the earth wire will either be (a) sleeved with green/yellow, (b) bare copper or (c) missing! If it's missing then your problems are a lot worse than you thought so we'll pass on that for now.

The earth wires go directly to the back box, NOT into any of the switch terminals. With that sorted out, you now have three terminals in each switch and three or more wires in each box. That's a lot of combinations to try out. Did you even bother to keep together wires that came from the same terminal?

With no yellow or blue in there it's quite likely that you have the old fashioned two way lighting circuit. Live comes in at one switch and connects to COM. This might be a single red wire. A two core cable goes to L1 and L2 at each switch. It doesn't matter which colour goes where. Switched live comes out from the COM terminal at the other switch. This is also likely to be a single red wire.

This circuit is symmetric so you don't need to know which switch has permanent live to make it work. In theory, the switch on the same floor as the light should have the permanent live but don't count on it. I've come across circuits like this where the neutral return from the bulb didn't even go to the same floor as the live came from.

If your wires don't match my description you'll have to provide a lot more information because there are just too many possibilities.

__________________
Their base is so secret, even the space cats don't know where they are.

[sharonmarie]

Hi, thanks to all of you for your help with this one.....

Right, here goes some answers for you, hope that they help....

I have swapped old switches for new ones.. Exactly the same type of switch ie a double switch down stairs ans a single one upstairs... The switch down stairs has two connectors on the back with C L1 & L2 on each. The switch upstairs is the same apart from having the one set of connectors..

I think the confusion came from when I disconnected the downstairs switch there was two cables both with a red wire, a black wire and a yellow/green wire... yellow and green went to the earth...One set of red and black wires went to one connector and the set to the other one... however there was also a small single piece of separate red wire connected from one terminal to another, (? what for, apart from making the bluming thing work, and I can't remember where it can from)!!

Hope this helps...

[Lectrician]

Ahh - that old bag...

OK.

Let me find a pic I drew a while ago......

[sharonmarie]

Hi Lectrician, thanks for your help with this one.....
Right, the wiring downstairs is exactly the way it is in your diagram.... so am I doing something wrong with the upstairs one?

As it is at the moment, I still have to mess around in the morning with the light..ie turn the upstairs light on and then go downstairs to turn it off so I can turn it back on again in the evening? does that make sense?? or for example when the kids go up to bed, they turn the landing light on from downstairs switch, go upstairs to do their teeth etc and then turn the light off upstairs, however I have to then go upstairs in the dark as the downstairs switch won't work..??

Thanks Sharon-Marie

[Lectrician]

Upstairs, the twin and earth cable from the switch downstairs will connect to the L1 and L2 either way around, the common will connect to the remaining core.

Reversing L1 and L2 simply alters the way the switches are when the light is on/off. It is good practice that when both switched are pressed in at the top, or both pressed in at the bottom, that the light is OFF. When either switch is opposite to the other, the light is on. Reversing L1 and L2 at either switch corrects this.

[sharonmarie]

Upstairs I have two cables.. I'm figuring that one is from downstairs and the other is to the light itself..? I have two red wires two neutral and only One black wire (the other one seems to have been chopped off..??) Do I still just connected like you have mentioned??

[Space cat]

Quote:

I have two red wires two neutral and only One black wire

Are you are still calling the green/yellow sleeved wires neutral? Those are earths. You have two red wires and one black wire and I believe you have the wrong red wire in the COM terminal. Lectrician is correct. The red wire from downstairs goes in either L1 or L2. The black wire, which also comes from downstairs, goes in either L2 or L1. The remaining red wire goes from COM to the light. If you get the reds the wrong way round your switches will work exactly as you describe.

This:

Quote:

It is good practice that when both switched are pressed in at the top, or both pressed in at the bottom, that the light is OFF. When either switch is opposite to the other, the light is on. Reversing L1 and L2 at either switch corrects this.

is also true.

__________________
Their base is so secret, even the space cats don't know where they are.

[sharonmarie]

Many thanks for all your help regarding the above matter. Lights are now sorted, thank you, thank you, thank you.