Combining Lighting Circuits

[davea84]

Hi -
I've got 3 lighting circuits in my living room, each with three down lighters on it. I assume this was originally done to control the lighting level, but I'd prefer to have all 9 lights on a single dimmer switch. My question is: is it as simple as taking the wire that goes into each switch and combining them into a the new dimmer, which would still leave me with 3 circuits, but they would all be controlled together. OR, should I link the circuits so that it is a single circuit of 9 lamps, all coming back to one switch? I'd prefer to do the former as I could do it myself and it would be less destructive, but more important to do it right!

Thanks!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Please take a bit of time to learn how lighting circuits are wired.

//www.diynot.com/wiki/Electrics:Lighting

You almost certainly do not have 3 lighting circuits in your living room, only 1, and all the lights are on it. You've probably only got 1 lighting circuit for the whole floor, possibly for the whole house. How many fuses/MCBs do you have for lighting? That's the number of circuits you have.

You can either join all the switch drops at the switch, or rewire part of the circuit to only have 1 switch cable, but you need to know what you are doing and why, not just connect things up without a genuine understanding of what's going on.

 

[ekmdgrf]

9 lamps!

Sounds like you need a lamp consolidation, rather than a circuit consolidation!

 

[davea84]

Apologies, maybe I was using the wrong terminology, thanks for clarifying. All 9 lights are on one circuit breaker, but switched from three different locations with each switch operating 3 of the lights.

I won't try anything without understanding what I'm doing - that's why I'm on here! Thanks again!

 

[AndyPRK]

Going from 3 to 2 is probably sensible and easy to achieve.

It will leave you some flexibility

 

[stillp]

Are the downlighters all dimmable?

 

[davea84]

Hi stillp,

Yes, they are all dimmable.

Hi AndyPRK,

I think it's all or nothing - either I'll make it all 1 switch or just leave it as is. It's just quite a small room, so it's crazy having to walk half way across it to have to turn on the rest of the lights...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

... switched from three different locations

In that case getting rid of 2 of the switches and the cables running to them (or at least disconnecting them from the lighting circuit) will be needed.

 

[AndyPRK]

I think we could do with more info.

How many switch locations are there in the room.

Does 1 switch control that light group only ?

Is there any 2 way switching like a hall landing.

 

[davea84]

Hi,

There are no two way switches. There are nine lights in total, arranged in a 3 x 3 grid. One line of 3 is over the kitchen end of the rectangular room (its a kitchen/diner type room), the remaining 6 are over the living room end. The kitchen 3 are controlled by a 1 gang switch on a wall in the kitchen area, the 6 over the living room are controlled in batches of 3 from a 2 gang switch. The kitchen switch and the living room switch are about 2m apart, which is just annoying but obviously not the end of the word. As the whole room ends up illuminated when any one switch is on, there's nothing to be gained by having them separate.

 

[AndyPRK]

Sounds like Bans ideal house

Its going to be quite difficult to combine the kitchen and living room switches together, so I think you will just have to put up with that.
It also allows you to have the kitchen at maximum brightness and others dimmer.


I would therefore recommend the top two in this link.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Light-Dim...ectrical_Fittings_MJ&var=&hash=item338329944d

1 gang for kitchen
2 gang for living/dining room. (or maybe you need the wider ones to suit the current switch size.)

Obviously colour/fitting of your choice, but you get the idea

 

[Taylortwocities]

If each of those lights is 50W theat means a total of 450W.

So a 400W dimmer ain't gonna hack it.

 

[AndyPRK]

That's a good point, so they can't all go on the same dimmer

 

[Taylortwocities]

We don't know the rating of the downlights…..

But you can get big dimmers, if necessary. 500, 600, 1000W and more.