problem with newly wired lights

[James]

Hi,

I am no electrician but I thought I had a average understanding of circuits until now!

When I moved into my house I had two outside lights, on the same circuit, controlled by two switches, that turned both lights on or off. I got an electrician to add another outside light, the supply was taken from one of the existing lights.

Now I decided to add a fourth light myself. I took the supply from the same light as the electrician did for the other, and now three of the four lights don't work.

The garage light is the only one that works now.

My understanding of the evolvment of my outside lights can be seen here. Sorry about the bad diagrams and web site, I did it in 2 minutes.

back door light had some terminal thing in it, with two black neutral wires, two earths and one red live. When I opened this up, there was an orange wire loose, it could have come out when I opened it, not knowing what it was I did not reconnect it. The red live and one black neutral go to the electrician fitted light. It may seem obvious that the orange wire is the main's live wire and that is why the 3 lights don't work. However I am confused by the fact that it is orange and am not sure if I should connect it.

If this is likely to be the problem I would appreciate some reassurance, or any other information I could use to fix the problem.

Thanks,

James

[Mark]

Hello James,

I assume the two blacks are together and the two earths are together and the red wire at the moment doesn't connect to anything and a loose orange wire. I believe the orange will be part of the two way switching circuit.

Isolate the circuit and connect it to the red and switch on. The worse that can happen is a tripped mcb.

[Sparks]

From your description, it sounds like the orange wire has come loose (is the terminal block where it looks like it was from loose, or does it contain a small piece of wire that has broken off the orange wire?

The reason it is orange - maybe it is that particular manufacturers version of red!

Can you take any pictures, or trace where this orange wire goes?

Sparks...

[Ben Blaukopf]

a) I *think* this work falls under Part P. If you don't know what that is, just google.

b) Did you connect the orange wire to a spare terminal, or did you just leave it loose? If the latter, you've got a potentially live wire waving around in the breeze. Which is a Bad Thing.

c) Sounds like you have two twin core+earth cables connecting to backdoor light, yet your diagram shows three connections. So I'm guessing that the TC+E with orange connects to either the garage switch or the back door switch, and then there's another cable running between the two switches forming a 2-way setup.

You need to find out exactly how your circuit is setup and understand how it works. A voltmeter can help you here [1] You can't rely on guesses from this newsgroup (though they might help you understand what you've got) because there's no guarantee that whoever put the original wiring in did it in a standard way.

You might want to get someone competent to take a look at what you're doing, as there are other things you can get wrong here. For example, if those three outside lights are halogen lights with a 500W bulb in each, and they're powered off a standard 5A circuit (which is what it looks like from your diagram), then you're overloading the circuit.

Ben

[James]

The outside lights take normal bulbs, two are low energy 15watt, one household 100 watt and one household 40 watt.

There is a cable connecting both switches. My diagram probably is not clear enough, but before I put the 'my light' in, there were two sets of TC+E going into the back door light. One comes from the garage door switch, the other comes from the light the electician installed (new light).

(From the back door light)Without doubt, one black ,earth and red cable go to the new light ( I guess the electrician had some old cable as I would have expected brown/blue from new cable). The other black, orange and earth must be the cable that goes to the garage switch I would have thought. After fitting my light, there are now 2 blacks/1 blue and 3 earth connected to their correct terminals.. One red from the 'new light' and one brown from 'my light'. The brown cable is 100% for 'my light' because I just fitted it. The orange cable at present is loose (i.e. not connected to the terminal).

It makes sense that the orange cable is the live from the garage switch, that could be one reason why the 3 lights do not work, as there is no supply reaching them.

At the next opportunity I will look at the garage switch and see if there is an orange wire, then I will connect the orange wire to the live in the back door light. If I get problems, I will take photos.

Thanks for your help.

James

[tarquinlinbin]

A common error that a lot of diy electricians make is to assume that all reds are lives,all blacks are neutrals and all greens are earths. Also that all reds go together,all blacks go together and all greens go together.

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[Mark]

I think the real problem is that many competent electricians and diy enthusiasts fail to sleeve the cables correctly to indicate to others the possibility of them being live. A bit of red tape round a core goes along way particularly in lighting circuits involving multiple switching.

[zymurgy]

LOL !

Nice summary.

Paul.

[James]

I fixed it, the problem was that the orange wire was a live wire and once connected, all the lights work.

Thanks,

James