Earlier in the week, my daughter Monique rang: "Hey dad, can you come and fit a couple of lights for me?" now I should point out she's been married for just under a year, and they have lived in the house for coming up to three years now. "How come I'm doing it? You have a husband now!" I said, bribed with the offer of copious amounts of tea and cake. I gave in and arranged to go over to her house Saturday.
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We have an outlet in the UK called Dunelm they're basically a home furnishings outlet, but the one thing I've discovered about them is they like the supermarket like to change things. You know how you can go into the supermarket each week and go straight to the Marmite and then suddenly, one Saturday, they've moved the Marmite to another aisle? Well, Dunelm likes to do something similar with their products. For example, recently, the missus wanted to change the blinds, not that there was anything wrong with the old ones, of course. So I had the famous: ""It'll only take a few minutes to swap them out." yeah right. Dunelm likes to change the fittings, doesn't it. And as for widths, it likes to now and again mess with that too!
The other thing they like to do is make their light fittings totally incompatible with what you currently have up. Most homes probably have those screw-on plastic light fittings, which are fine, but then you have the large chocolate-block fitting screwed to the ceiling which takes up most of the volume of the screw cap you took down. Now, most people don't want to take that block down, mainly because we're not electricians. Hence, we slip the supplied metal bracket behind the chocolate block and then try to force all the wiring from the new light fitting into the low-profile enclosure Dunelm so loves to promote not forgetting, in this case, the three arms with nuts on bolted to the inside of the housing.
Obviously, the first step is to turn off the electricity for the lights in the fuse box. Then, after removing the old light, I forced the new one up after a bit of modification, climbed down the steps and switched the power back on BANG! a blue stream shot across the ceiling with a puff of black smoke. Not only had it blown a bit of plastic off the chocolate block, but it also blew up the light switch! "Oh dear, the light switch is knackered; it won't turn off or on," I said. Clearly, one of the arms of the lights was touching something live! I dispatched the son-in-law to the local DIY store (B&Q) to buy a new light switch while I reseated the light, and while I was waiting for the SIL to return, I fitted the upstairs one and switched the power back on, and at least it didn't go bang again. ""There's something wrong? I said "I don't understand? I wired it up the same?" The two light switches were set to off and on? Off for downstairs and On for upstairs. I looked at the wiring, scratched my head. I went on the Internet, scratched my head. I went back to the light switch, scratched my head, then my daughter said: "Oh, hang on, dad, let me switch the light off upstairs. Hey, Presto, both switches for downstairs were now Off!
If you are going to change your lights. Make sure the light rose is deep enough.
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"how many dickturpin's does it take to switch a light"?
How come that the switch from upstairs has anything to do with the switch from downstairs? Shouldn't those be seperated by different groups?
They are. I should have said it was a dual switch. Two downstairs, one upstairs.
I had to help a friend out with changing a light years ago. He had tried just wiring all the matching coloured wires together than blown a few fuses. They had the old wire ones in the consumer unit. Had to educate him that it's not that simple as the switch wires will be different colours and he was managing to short it out. Luckily the switch survived.
I've wired up two houses and nothing has gone bang yet. I am not qualified as an electrician, but I do have a degree in electrical engineering. Not the same thing, but I know enough to read up on standards for house wiring.
As I said. I think the metal arm inside the fitting touched the live feed.
Was it bad design? Some of these things are much more fiddly than they could be.
You're supposed to take this lot down. But most people see that lot and think: "Fook that! I can cope with two wires but not that lot." so they end up loosening that plate, slipping the support bracket between the plate and the ceiling, screwing the plate back up and then forcing the light fitting up. Which is a job-n-half trying to get all the wires in; when that block, you can see there takes up over 80% of the room inside the fitting.
Yes, that was the whole point of the post. They make them too low-profile these days.
If you look at this picture. (This is an example) you need to remove that white chocolate block so you just have the wires. But then see the (In this case) two nuts with the cables coming out? The tubes actually sit quite high inside so one of those touched the 'Live' in the ceiling rose.
Sometimes it's the brackets and stuff that are more hassle than the wiring. If everything is safely inside the block then the chances of shorting out should be low. Some older lights may not be earthed, so can be more dangerous.
Luckily, I have one of those testers screwdrivers.
Talking of electrocution. My grandfather worked for the LEB (London Electricity Board). He told me about the time he was working at a substation, and the guy next to him was working on a panel alongside him when suddenly the guy dropped down dead. They knew he'd been electrocuted, but they couldn't fathom out how. On a hunch, the pathologist started removing layers of skin on the dead guy's toes, and several layers down got their answer. While they worked on rubber mats, the silly sod had rested his foot on the base, and his boots touched the wall and BINGO! He created a circuit.
Ouch! Didn't they have rubber boots? I know some people say you should keep a hand in your pocket when checking things so you are less likely to create a circuit.
I break out the multimeter when I'm not sure how something is wired.