Loop in roses

[The Medway Handyman]

Had a job "can you look at my upstairs lights". IANAE, but she was recommended by a neighbour.

Arrived to find a ceiling rose had been removed & all 9 wires, ends covered in brown parcel tape, were poking out of the ceiling.

Apparently, her(now ex) husband had been asked to change a light shade and for some reason had removed the entire rose, disconnected all the wires & then given up!

None of the upstairs lights worked.

Easy enough to fix, switch live was sleeved, new rose, Robert is your fathers brother.

"Thank heavens for that" she said. "It's been a real pain for the last

2 years"!

It lead me to thinking though - finding all the L & N's joined is quite a common error - but how many possible combinations are there - and what are the consequences?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

If you simply join all the L together and all the N - the most common mistake - the light will work with the switch off. And blow the 'fuse' when you switch on.

[Brian Gaff]

Too many to think about. Where do these people get their logic from ans why cannot they simply check they know what to do before they begin?

Brian

[philipuk]

Perhaps they should sell twin and earth with two brown conductors to avoid confusion.

A lot of the lights in this house are wired with two cables coming to the light switch, the neutral either unbroken or connected in a connector block, which seems odd to me but I suppose is OK.

Philip

[Andy Burns]

Unsurprisingly, they do ...

[F]

The simplest way to avoid problems putting things back as they were is to take a photograph before anything is moved.

[DerbyBorn]

Andy Burns wrote in news:QeCdnYa- [e-mail]:

One really needs a stripe to identify the cores.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That may not help. What is needed is to make sure the switch return is identified, before removing things. But then if one doesn't know this it's perhaps best not to mess with electricity.

[newshound]

I once rescued my neighbour, MA DPhil MD with research experience at Oxford, Cambridge, and MIT from this.

[dennis]

That's what I use, and triple and earth for two way.

Sparkies usually don't because they penny pinch.

[dennis]

Why?

[Muddymike]

BTDT GTTS

When my son bought his house in Richmond he called me as he was faced with the same situation in the lounge, also complicated by two way switching. It seems the previous owner had not used that light for months as the delinquent husband had abandoned fitting a fancy ceiling light for the same reason. It took me half an hour with a meter and a bit of trial and error to work it all out.

Mike

[Andy Burns]

Electrons don't care if they're going to the switch or coming back, they change direction a hundred times a second anyway ...

[DerbyBorn]

Andy Burns wrote in news: [e-mail]:

For convention I would want to put the live feed to the Common of a switch or where would we be - France!

[ARW]

And as the sleeving on the switched live often falls off when swapping a fitting (or is not there in the first place) then I chop the exposed copper off the switched live when removing the fitting. It does not matter then if the sleeving falls off or there was no sleeving.

[ARW]

How many combinations of what? Assuming that you know all the reds go together and all the earths go together then there are only three combinations.

[The Medway Handyman]

I tape it with red (or brown) tape before I disconnect it.

[The Medway Handyman]

But the punters don't necessarily know all the reds go together :-)

[Old Codger]

Only in AC circuits.

[Dave Liquorice]

It also assumes that the switch loop has been wired in ordinary twin & earth not the "twin live" version.