No earth wire

just bought new lights for the kitchen, but they are encased in metal and say they need an earth, but there isn't one. Is there any other way to earth the light?

If your lighting system does not have earth wires, I'm afraid you need to get the lighting (and maybe more) in your house rewired. It is possible to 'steal' an earth connection from elsewhere, but I would not recommend it, there are potential dangers to doing this (although a lot of people still do it)

If your wiring is PVC (white or grey cables) you may not need a full rewire, just rewire the lights, and maybe bring the fuseboard and earthing up to scratch.. If the cables are rubber or lead (black cables or lead-covered), you will need a full rewire.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I would recommend you get the installation inspected, and do not install any metal light fittings. Your installation is clearly over 25 years old, so it's time for an update.

Cheers

Paul

on the other hand it may also be the person who fitted the ligts cut the earth off (it happenss) what does the existing cable look like

Breezer has a point - look back to where the outer sheath of the cables have been stripped off, and you may see a cut earth wire - if so you may be able to pull some more cable through and reterminate. To be honest though, I'd have to say it's more likely that there are no earths, in which case you need it rewiring.

How old do you think the installation is?

P

Apologies for jumping in...

By stealing an earth connection I guess you mean running an earth wire to an existing socket's earth (as an example).

Why might this be dangerous?

Cheers.

The reason stealing an earth would be dangerous is as follows:

1) If you steal an earth from, say, the ring circuit (ie run an earth wire from a socket), then someone needs to disconnect the ring circuit wiring from the consumer unit to carry out testing or alterations, they have, without realising it, disconnected the earth from this light. You should not be able to create a danger on one circuit by disconnecting another. This is against regulations, each circuit must have it's own Circuit Protective Conductor (earth wire), they must not be shared between circuits.

2) In the event that for some reason the earth on the ring circuit becomes faulty, this also means that the earth to this light is now faulty. Then let's say an appliance plugged in to a socket becomes faulty and creates an earth fault. Beause of the dodgy earth, the earth conductor in the ring circuit becomes live. Because of the stolen earth and a fault in the ring circuit, the light's metalwork now becomes live. A fault on one circuit should not make another one dangerous.

3) Even if all earth in the ring circuit are OK, an earth fault in an appliance plugged into a socket would still cause a current to flow to earth, and could still make the light fitting live for a short period of time.

Trust me - it's a fairly common bodge to avoid rewiring the lighting system, but it is not a safe thing to do. If a lighting circuit has no earth - it has to be rewired. This is just one of those sirtuations where there are no 'buts or ifs'

Hope this clarifies the situation.

Paul

Just to say thankyou hugely for suggesting looking for a cut-back earth! I was going to send back a metal light fitting as couldn't find an earth in the ceiling wires. Managed to pull cables through and found it. Thanks again.

Sorry to put a downer on this one, but one further thought, should have mentioned it before:

If you have found a fitting where someone cut the earth wires back, be very careful - if this has been done on other fittings, the chances are that there is no continuous earth on the circuit, so even though you have terminated the earth wires in that individual fitting, it may well still be unearthed. All the earth wires in all the light fittings need to be terminated for the lighting installation to be correctly earthed.

I suggest getting a sparks to check this out if you are unsure, they will have the means to test whether it is earthed correctly.

I have come accross quite a few installations in the past where lighting cables with earth wires were used, but no earths were terminated in any fittings. I think this happened in the period when earthed cables first came out but before the regulations requiring the earths were fully in force. Basically they were converting Twin and Earth cable to Twin Cable, because the fittings at the time had no provision for earths. Not a sensible move, but par for the course at the time I suppose (way before my time!!).

Cheers

Paul

paulfromswindon said:

par for the course at the time I suppose (way before my time!!).

Cheers

Paul

Click to expand...

You sure paul ??!!

What do you mean scoby? I'm only 17

Welll... Ok, not before my time as in before I was born. Before I was a sparks maybe