Replacing light in bathroom

[Loobylou]

Hi, I've taken my old bathroom light fitting down and I have one red wire and two black ones, the black ones were intertwined. I have no idea which is the earth and which is the neutral. Which do I wire them up to? HELP

 

[Adam_151]

The blacks are the neutral and the red is the live, the earth will be a bare wire (which should be) sleeved in green and yellow earth sleeving

 

[Loobylou]

There isn't a bare wire, just the three. They are all grey on the outside but when I cut a bit of the casing one is red and two are black. Can I not wire it up without an earth wire?

 

[Adam_151]

Only if its a class 2 fitting.

(well technically you could fit any fitting without an earth... theres no magic force that hides your tools if you try to do that, but you know what I mean )

 

[Job_n_knock]

My question is....How old is your wiring? Do any of the cables have earths inside them ? It is generally recognised that House wiring should be changed every 20 years. If you have cables without earths I would suggest your wiring is probably 30-35 years old....rewire time.

 

[plugwash]

PVC cable properly installed and not overloaded should last a very long time. However if it has no earth then it indeed should be rewired.

Conduit single installs (which from the colors are what i suspect you have) with the conduit as the earth are acceptable but great care must be taken to ensure the conduits integrity remains and it may be simpler to rewire in this case.

can you get access from the top to see whats going on.

 

[RF Lighting]

Sounds like double covered singles to me. You often find the earth is run inside the outer sheath of the live (so the switches get earthed too).
Like this:

The earth may have been snipped off at the sheath.

Can you post a photo of the wires?