Help - rying to replace light fitting

[rabbit1331]

Imhaving a bit of a mare! I bought a fairly old house recently and one of the kids managed to pull a ceiling rose down. So i've got the wires but can't figure fitting a replacement.

The room has a double light switch allowing 2 lights in the room to be turned on idividually.

The wire from the ceiling are as such

3 red wires twisted together
2 black twisted together
1 black on its own.

Im trying to put up a light which needs earthing but I csan't figure out which is the earth

 

[IanDB]

Normally the arrangement you've got is as follows:-

Three red wires - 240v live feed, one from the previous light, one to the next light, one to the wall switch.

Two black wires, one neutral from the previous light, one to the next light.

Single black wire, is the switched 240v coming back from the light switch.

The light should be connected between the single black (switched 240v) and the two blacks (neutral).

Unfortunately you don't appear to have an earth wire. Major problem - need a rewire?

Also are you replacing this with a standard ceiling rose or is this a light fitting in its own right? A ceiling rose has the right number of connections to allow you to do this otherwise you're going to need some connector block.

 

[felix]

IanDB has it right. I would add that you're lucky that the wires are twisted together so you know what was connected to what else. Whatever you do, don't lose this vital piece of information. There are quite a few cries for help on this forum from people with a load of unidentified wires poking out of their ceilings.

And now for the earth. Follow one of those wires back (power OFF of course) until you find a cable sheath. Is there a bare wire lurking in there alongside the red and black? If there is, can you pull enough loose cable out to make it reach your rose? Can you do this with all three cables? Are those bare wires connected at their other ends? If all the answers are yes then you're in luck. You have yourself an earth for your new light.

If there are no earths up there or you can't reach them then you are restricted to double insulated light fittings only. It this point I would be checking out the rest of the lighting circuit to see what's what.

 

[plugwash]

i would NEVER trust a cut back earth wire to actually be connected to earth

if its been cut back at one fitting it probablly has at others too

 

[securespark]

Set a MM to 240V and put it across L & E. That will tell you whether it is connected.

 

[rabbit1331]

Thanks for the help, I am Ok with electrics but this is an old house so I think in the circumstances i'll get an electrician in.

What I was hoping to do was replace the old rose with a spotlight setup, which as it happens has a connector block included.

Obviously at some point earth had to be included in a lighting circuit, if so when did this occur? The house was built in the 60s but has had an extention and so I would have assumed a re-wire then.

Cheers

 

[rabbit1331]

Don't suppose anybody knows of a good electrician in Ely Cambs?

 

[breezer]

yellow pages?