Wood lighting back box

[CJLees01]

I've just moved to a new house and wanted to change the 1930's style switches with nice metal ones.

I was expecting a nicely earthed back box for me to earth my new switch to, but no, the back box is made of wood and there is no earth wire in sight.

What should I do?

 

[JohnD]

no earth wire ==> lighting circuit probably 40 years old or more

you mustn't use metal switches or light fittings but you can fit new plastic ones

the lighting needs rewiring with 1.5mm T&E, and to be earthed, but at that age the whole electrical installation will need other updates as well. As part of the rewiring you or your electrician can fit metal back-boxes. If you are lucky, this age of house often has conduit drops to the light switch positions, which can probably be re-used, so you won't have to chase out the walls so much.

The old wooden boxes might be about the right size to take out and replace with metal, but will probably need some chipping out and redecorating.

If you can post a pic showing your fusebox, meter, incoming cable, earthing and the cables around them we can make other suggestions.

 

[breezer]

are there electric fires built into the wall too?

 

[Steve]

Photographs!!!!

See here for how to post photographs on the forum.

 

[CJLees01]

are there electric fires built into the wall too?

I really hope not!!

Some photos;

When we moved in we got an independent periodic inspection certificate which said that we didn't need to rewire (huge sigh of relief). Although we didn't have to, we did decide to change the fuse box over to a new breaker box, which is why this looks new - it is only about 2 weeks old...

The meter and entry point

This is the ceiling rose in the room where I want to change the switch, and there is an earth wire here. If I change the switch wire to include an earth and connect to this, will that work?

 

[Taylortwocities]

The ceiling rose pic shows only two wires and earth. this means that the switch wire doesnt come to the ceiling rose. you probably have a junction box (somewhere) where all the lighting switches, the feed in and the feed out come together.

You would need to carry out a test with a low reading ohm meter to make sure that there is a true earth at this point. Just because there's a wire with green or green & yellow sleeving doesnt mean that its connected anywhere!
If its OK you can then replace the drops to the switches from the junction box.

You can locate the junction box from following the wire that goes to your ceiling rose.

Edit. The fact that there is no earth at the switch points should have been noted as a departure on the Electrical installation certificate that then sparky gave you after he changed the consumer unit..