Swapping a Pendant light for spot light

[elsmore1]

Hi All,

I have a standard pendant light near loft hatch which gets a bit in the way so I would like to swap for a spot light so its surface mounted is this easy to do as I will have a live, neutral and earth, that I can just fit to the spot light. It is only a small area to light so does not need to be bright and are the energy saving ones that take a while to light fully worth having in place of a GU10 type, it wont be used too much.

I had an electrician in recently to add an extra light to my loft so would not tackle anything tricky but hope this would just be straight swap other having to cut a larger hole.

Thanks

 

[martinxxxxxx]

It probably is not as simple as you might be imagining, you might be expecting to see one live wire , one neutral wire and an earth wire. But you maybe confronted by 9 wires or more when you look in that ceiling rose. See the WIKI above on lighting to see what all those wires will be doing. But you might find what you expect. It depends, have a look first, all power off first please, not just the lightswitch

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

By spot light do you mean downlight?, which will require you breaking in to the ceiling void for the hole?
If so you need to make sure that you do not break into the insulation if the space above is a insulated loft, the lights do require ventilation, so an insulation brace may be required.
If the space above is any area that is lived in, then you will need to consider the fire hazards.
Might be better to install a low profile ceiling light!
As far as the wiring is concerned, could be a simple three conductor arrangement with one live, one neutral and one CPC/earth.
Or could be a little more if looped in at the ceiling rose.
If you do disconnect, take pictures and notes of cables mark the switched live cable (if not already marked) or you could be in for a long dark night!
As it is landing light, likely to be two way function, so check this links out, could be helpful!
//www.diynot.com/wiki/electrics:lighting:two_way_lighting

 

[pjcomp]

Another potential problem with swapping a pendant for a recessed downlight is that the pendant might be screwed to a joist, or even wired through it. In which case the downlight will have to be offset several inches rather than replacing in the same spot.

pj