hallway lighting with old wiring

[Lucas2d]

I have old lighting wiring throughout the house (no earth) i know this should be changed to 3c twin & earth but new windows came first! the problem im having is the the upstair lighting circuit is run off the downstair lighting circuit through some dodgey wire connecting the downstair live to the upstair live through a double switch in the hallway downstair, when the upstair hall light is switched on from this double switch none of the upstair lighting works apart from the hall light and the only time the upstair room lighting works is when the hall lights are controlled from the single switch from upstairs.. any ideas until i can rewire the lighting?

 

[ltfc]

no

 

[slippyr4]

that sounds ridiculous, and i'd want to be very sure there weren't other major faults.

But, you could sacrifice your two way switching of the hall, use the conductors that are already in place to carry a permament live upstairs, just have the landing single way switched from the switch on the landing.

But you need to rewire, and hack like that is short term at best.

 

[Lectrician]

I have seen similar faults caused by a lack of mains earthing.

Sounds stupid, but very plausible.

N to E and L to E faults either side of switches and lamps can cause wierd and wonderful things to happen with no main earth!

I was called to look at a house that had trouble with the lights - kitchen lights where causing dinning lights to come on, and hall lights wouldn't work, unless you turned on the wc light......

Turned out to be rat chewed cables in a large bundle causing N to E and L to E faults galore, and no main earthing (old TT with a disfuctional ELCB).

Really odd one, but worth a thought!

 

[slippyr4]

sounds reasonably likely. surely noone would ever wire up lights in the first place so they behaved as described by the OP