electric gremlins

[zorro]

My downstairs lighting circuit, which has functioned perfectly well for many years, is now exhibiting a very disconcerting condition whereby when the living room ceiling lights are on and the adjoining kitchen lights are on and then switched off, the ceiling lights in the living room go off as well.

The lights in the kitchen are actually strip lights below the wall mounted cupboards and not the ceiling lights but they are wired into the same 3 gang socket. The ceiling lights in the living room are controlled by a touch type -dimmer switch. I've checked the connections to the switch for the kitchen lights and all looks OK except that i can see a hair crack in the bakelite at one of the screw connection points.
If anyone could give me advice on what may be causing this problem i would be extremely grateful.

David

 

[ColJack]

firstly, what have you done to the house recently
anything from changing a switch to hanging a picture or tigtening a door hinge screw could be a cause.. we need to know..

 

[zorro]

Than you for responding so quickly; No work has been done recently. The last work done in the living room was about 2 years ago and that was to fit two new ceiling lights which have multi-bulbs and have a transformer built in to the `integral rose`

The kitchen was re-papered , again about 2-3 years ago by a professional decorator who removed , or at least loosened , the switch plate to have the wallpaper underneath. Actually when i loosened the plate today to check the wiring one of the wires had come out of its screw location. I was really pleased as I thought that this was the fault but it was short lived for when I enabled the trip switch at my consumer unit and switched on and off the kitchen lights the living room ones switch off simultaneously.

 

[ColJack]

so then you've put the wire back in the wrong hole...

get us pictures of the backs of the switches kitchen and living room..

 

[zorro]

It was the only hole in the 3 gang switch that didn't already have a wire in it. The third one is used for an outside security light.

 

[ricicle]

It was the only hole in the 3 gang switch that didn't already have a wire in it. The third one is used for an outside security light.

It still might be the wrong hole !

 

[ColJack]

you may have put a permanent live ( to the next lights ) into the 2 way terminal of a 1 way lighting circuit... or any number of other posibilities..

 

[zorro]

I sincerely apologize for not having replied sooner to your last response but I had been away on company business and the issue had slipped my mind. That is because we managed to discover that the `touch type` dimmer switch controlling the lights in the living room was faulty. I replaced that with a more simple knob type of dimmer switch and that has cured the original problem. However, i would like to thank you for taking the trouble and time to offer help. It was very much appreciated.

David.L