confusing lighting wires

[jase1422]

Hi all,
Ive been looking through the site and its great, good advice you lot give out. well heres my problem. bought a house and i have a problem with the landing light. you can switch it on downstairs but if you switch it off upstairs you cant switch it on again from downstairs. ive looked at other posts but cant seem to get this right, took all the wires out of the switches to try and wire it up right but have a slight problem.
upstairs: single switch with com 1way and 2way terminals
wires comeing out of the wall two 2 core cables = 2 red and 2 black wires and unsheathed wire (earth?)and 1 black wire on its own
downstairs: double switch with 2 com 2 1 way and 2 2 way terminals
wires coming out of wall two 2 core cables =2 red and 2 black wires
any one any idea how to wire this up or should i just get a sparky in, although id like to do this myself
thanks in advance

 

[daytona]

Hi all,
Ive been looking through the site and its great, good advice you lot give out. well heres my problem. bought a house and i have a problem with the landing light. you can switch it on downstairs but if you switch it off upstairs you cant switch it on again from downstairs. ive looked at other posts but cant seem to get this right, took all the wires out of the switches to try and wire it up right but have a slight problem.
upstairs: single switch with com 1way and 2way terminals
wires comeing out of the wall two 2 core cables = 2 red and 2 black wires and unsheathed wire (earth?)and 1 black wire on its own
downstairs: double switch with 2 com 2 1 way and 2 2 way terminals
wires coming out of wall two 2 core cables =2 red and 2 black wires
any one any idea how to wire this up or should i just get a sparky in, although id like to do this myself
thanks in advance

does one switch look newer than the other?
it sounds like someone has replaced one and put the commons in different terminals.you really need to test it all out.

for future reference dont diconnect it all next time!
in all honesty i cant think of how to tell you to get through this and it will only take a sparks a half hour to sort it

problem is i dont want to give you duff advice and blow you up!
were the blacks in the switch terminals or in a separate connector block?

 

[jase1422]

hi, thanks for the advice, all the blacks were in the terminal blocks and both switches look about the same age, i think ill get a mutimeter from b an q tommorow and see if i can sort it out, oh and lots of fuse wire.

 

[saxondale]

hi, thanks for the advice, all the blacks were in the terminal blocks and both switches look about the same age, i think ill get a mutimeter from b an q tommorow and see if i can sort it out, oh and lots of fuse wire.

no - you`ll kill yourself


cost of engineer minus cost of multimeter equals money well spent

 

[JohnD]

Assuming the lighting was once wired correctly, and has just been cocked up in one of the switches, you can methodically work through the wires to identify them, using your mutimeter, some marking tape, and a permanent pen.

You will have to study the lighting wiring diagrams and find the instructions on how to do it.

I can't be bothered to repeat it today.

Read http://www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=677885#677885