Earth Wiring

[Brad80]

Hi all

I am in the process of replacing a standard ceiling pendant light with a spotlight (with a pull cord to turn it off at the light itself). Coming down fromt the ceiling i have a black and red cable (2 of each) which i'll match up with the blue and brown leads from the new light.

However my problem is that the light also has an Earth wire - i have nowhere to connect this.

Where do i connect it or can i get rid of it as the previous light didn't have one and worked okay.

I am in the UK (and very confused!)

Any help would be really appreciated.

Thanks

Brad

 

[mapj1]

If your house is remotely conventional in its wiring, then please DON'T connect the two reds and blacks to each other - see the "for reference" for a drawing. One of the wire pairs is 'switch', the other is supply so connect the two reds to each other, and put the business cables of the lamp between the two blacks...
If you do you will put the switch straight accross the supply, leading to the switch turning the lights of, once, when the contacts close, and probably buggering the switch too.

As regards the earth, You should really get an earth from somewhere, either another light that has one, or at a push an upstairs power socket. (altough this sort of thing is frowned upon, its much better than nothing) Although many fittings will actually work perfectly well without the earth, and so people often just leave it off, if the cable were to chafe through at a later date, you could have a live fitting, and never know, until you touched it.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If your house is remotely conventional in its wiring, then please DON'T connect the two reds and blacks to each other - see the "for reference" for a drawing. One of the wire pairs is 'switch', the other is supply so connect the two reds to each other, and put the business cables of the lamp between the two blacks...

Not necessarily - could be a JB system, and what he's got is a switched live supplying more than one fitting.

Brad80 - is there more than 1 light controlled by the same switch?

And where was everything connected with the old pendant fitting? Please don't say that you took it all apart without thinking to make a note of what went where?

As regards the earth, You should really get an earth from somewhere, either another light that has one, or at a push an upstairs power socket. (altough this sort of thing is frowned upon, its much better than nothing)

No "should" about it - you must do this, or change the fitting. You must not connect a fitting which needs an earth to a circuit which does not have an earth.

Also, if your lighting circuit has no earth, I'd be concerned about it's age, and therefore the rest of the wiring.

Are you sure there's no earth conductor. People sometimes (wrongly) cut them back if they're fitting something which doesn't need one.