New Lighting Circuit to Consumer Unit

[chrisnicebutdim]

If I am connecting a new lighting circuit to the consumer unit, (garage) does the neutral go to the neutral block in the consumer unit, or does this start from the first light and just create a loop between all lights in the circuit but not form part of the consumer unit ?


I have connected a garage consumer unit fed from the house unit which is short circuiting when any socket on the ring main is used, yet if I treat the new circuit and ring main as an extension lead and put a 3 pin plug on the end and put it into an existing socket it all works fine without tripping the main board- any ideas?

 

[Spark123]

The neutral starts at the consumer unit and loops with the phase (live) to each loop in light fitting. See second part of post: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7553&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=3


What is tripping?
If it is an RCD in a split load consumer unit a common mistake to make is to connect the neutral to the wrong neutral bar in the CU.

If you live in England or Wales, please be aware of the following: //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=286636#286636

 

[chrisnicebutdim]

Thanks SPARK123, spot on with your guess that I was linking to the wrong Neutral bar. Why should it be any different, I thought neutral was neutral or is that a different question altogether

 

[plugwash]

an RCDs purpose is to detect faults to earth. However checking that directly would be nearly impossible as you'd have to account for all earth paths. So what the RCD does is it detects an IMBALANCE between live and neutral current. If this imbalance exceeds a certain level (generally 30ma) it trips.

Connecting the live after the RCD and the neutral before it (or vice versa) will mean the current only flows through one side of the RCD causing it to trip.