1 gang switch to 2 gang switch for extra set of lights

[malfranco]

Morning everyone lovely day outside shame im stuck infront of a pc anyway.

I am a newbie here and need a bit of advise, been doing up my house for the last year inbetween getting married and getting the mrs up the duff and working 6 days a week.

So it has been slow going as you can imagine the last main room to do is the kitchen I have done most of the units and electrics new sockets and the like. I have a main toggle 1 gang switch that puts the main light on in the room, however I have some down lights for the glass unit and flyover which I want to come off that mian light but switch on and off independantly.

Question is I have a 2 gang toggle switch which I can replace the 1 gang switch with can I just put the feed into that and spur off too the new lights from that or is it more complicated than that.

Any help would be gratefully received.

 

[breaker1]

you can bridge the feed across to the second switch and take another switchline to your new lights, you must however pick up the neutral from the same circiut that the first switch is on

I should add that since January 2005 you are not legally allowed to do electrical work in a kitchen unless you are part p registered or notify your local building control before startintg work

 

[malfranco]

Thanks for that matey, so I just bridge with a short wire both live and neutral to the otherside of the 2 gang switch and then run the light wire off that side?

 

[breaker1]

If the neutrals for the first lights are at the switch position yes join your new light neutral to the existing and the live to the load side of the second switch. It is more common however for the neutrals to be at the light position , in that case you will need to take the cable from your new lights to that position and also the new cable from the second switch to the same position and make the connection there in a joint box, connect the new light neutral to the existing light neutrals and new light live to the return fom the switch (brown) if you are using new cable, if you are using twin and earth to the switch you can just cut the unused core (blue) at each end or tape it up , it may come in useful at a later date for additional switching

 

[malfranco]

That seems pretty straight forward not looked into it in great detail yet so long as I can create the seperate set of lights with the existing lights should be ok thanks.