Replacing lightswitch

[marcjwilson]

Hi - this might come across as a very basic question, hopefully there's an answer basic enough for me to learn . I want to replace a lightswitch, so I turned off the power, unscrewed it and took the front panel and mounting panel box, but whereas the old mounting box has the earth screwed into a little brass holder, my new mounting box doesn't have one of those - what do I do with the earth?




Thanks - my girlfriends dad said it would be easy...

 

[Taylortwocities]

Do you mean the back mounting box or the switch front plate???

The earth lead must connect to the front plate of the switch if the switch is made of metal.
Otherwise it should connect to the terminal on the back box.

If there's no terminal (eg on a plastic back box) the earth wire should be sleeved in green & yellow earth sleeving.

 

[marcjwilson]

The switch is just white plastic, theres a terminal on the existing box, but not on the new one. Am I right in thinking that it's ok to just leave the earth loose inside but just sleeved? Wasn't sure if leaving the earth loose was safe

 

[Davisss]

What u want to do is just place the loose earth wire in sleeving as mentioned and connect into a 5a connector block. Job's a good un!

 

[Adam_151]

You want a bit of strip connector/ terminal block/ chocolate block and put the earths in a bit of that, use one bit of block and put all the earths you have in it, if there is more than one, then continuity needs to be maintained, but it sounds like you just have one?


A frowned upon trick if there is just one is to use a bit of sleeving thats a bit too long and bend the the end of the earth to keep it on, but don't do that, its not seen as good practice!