Ceiling Rose Puzzle

[IJWS15]

We had a wall light in one area of the bedroom and needed to move this into the ceiling - stnadard rose reversing what someone had done in the past.

Two separate lights in the room, one two way switched, and the one I needed to move one way switched. The one way switched from the same place as one of the two way swtitches. Just to complicate matters the second two way switch shares a triple plate with the ensuite fan and light.

Took a long look in the junction box in the loft and had what looked like - Loop in, loop out, switch cable (White with two reds) live and feed to the (to be removed) wall light, and what I assumed was the feed out to the aerial booster, missed the point that the loop out appeared to be triple and earth with Yellow core sleeved red and blue core sleeved black (!)

Swithced circuit off and stripped out the feed to the wall light (correct) and fed the wires throught he ceiling. Connected loop in and swithed live and then realised that the triple & Earth wasn't what I expected . .

Re-conneceted power and the two way light worked . . .

An hour's research including the diagrams of the "modern" way of wiring two way switching and what I really had was:

1. Loop in as expected,
2. Switch cable for the one way - one core red, one black - this was what I thought was the booster feed.
3. Swich cable for the two way - despite it being at the other rose across the room.
4. Triple & Earth which is the feed to the other light (including a return/neutral) - no it is not the link to the other 2-way switch, that runs straight between the two switches and does not come near this rose.

Cost me an hour or so testing continuity but all back and working as it should, just has a choc bloc inside the rose for the fifth terminal.

BTW - Earth present in all cables, just not mentioned above.

B..... electricians.

 

[ericmark]

And the question is?

There are in a house three colours Brown = Line, Blue = Neutral and Green/yellow = earth however some electricians make it easy and used cable which is really designed for three phase with Brown, Black, Gray it would seem who ever did your house used this method. Don't complain he could have used one colour.

Old houses Brown = Red, Black = Yellow, Gray = Blue, Blue = Black and Green = Green/Yellow but same result it's easier to trace wiring when multi-colours are used so again what's the complaint or question.

 

[IJWS15]

No - Won't forget, but don't expect to see this again.

Why would the switch cable for the first light run through the second rose?

 

[securespark]

I'm confused. Maybe I misunderstand.

Your first post suggests you were expecting to find the 3 core to be a switch cable and were surprised it was not.

Your second post asks why would the switch cable run through a ceiling rose.

The fact is, "b..... electricians" or not, I have seen 3 core and cpc cables used for both these purposes: linking light fittings where some conductors carry electricity in one direction and others in the other, and where switch wires are jointed at the light fitting, ceiling rose or junction box.

The key in situations like this is labelling. Sleeving or marking the conductors at the terminations to show their purpose would lessen confusion greatly.