This downlighter is the only possible access above a ceiling.
Can anyone tell me whether I can get it out of the ceiling: Without breaking it? Being able to put it back?
If so, how exactly? I presume that I have to get the plastic clips off the tags in the side of the cylindrical bit, but how would I get them back on again?
The label reads: RING LIGHTING ART NO. 5088
240V - MAX 100WTIA
I am not familiar with that particular model - so take this with caution!
Most of those type of fittings have a spring clip on each side like:
The idea being that you spring them back up and flat against the body of the lamp for insertion, and once in the spring down and pull the lamp up into the ceiling. Normally you will feel this spring as you pull the fitting down. Removal is typically just a case of pulling them down enough to get your fingers on the clips and then squeeze them onto the side of the lamp for removal. Beware the mousetrap action if you pull it down too far and have your fingers in the wrong place!
Normally they simply pull down.
NT
scant info to work off but:-
how many cables to this light? how many lights off *that* switch?
If one cable, (and/or more than one light) then that cable won't lead to the switch anyway? more likely a junction box linking all together with the loop etc?
how old is house? and wiring?
Jim K
This is the porch annexe in my new old house.
AFAICT, it's a traditional dwelling with walls about a metre thick probably for which, many years ago, one end would have been for livestock, the other for people, though it is significantly larger than most of this type. Now, roughly speaking, it's been divided into three crossways - this room which is currently a good-sized kitchen/diner, the old kitchen which is currently a utility room (and the hall corridor and stairs), and an equally good-sized sitting-room at the other end - and into two height ways - giving two large and one rather small bedrooms, and a bathroom. Onto the back of this, under a sloping roof, has been added a shower-room, and a porch, which leads into the old kitchen, currently the utility room.
It's this latter area we are discussing.
The problem is that idiots have confusingly wired the outside light to a two gang switch by the door into the shower, and the interior light for the porch itself to a one-gang switch by the front door. Thus I've been absent-mindedly trying switches to find the one I want. I want to pull up the wiring to the outside light switch and pull it down by the front door, and swap the switch units around, resulting in a logical arrangement where the outside light switch is the one nearest the outside (ding!), and the porch light next to it, and the shower switch is by itself on the other side of the porch.
That would then also leave me free to put the light switch inside the shower-room on a pull, if I should choose to do so, though I may not, as there is a toilet just inside the door where the pull string would most logically have to dangle, so it would have to go by the other wall a metre away from the door, which is also not ideal, so I'll probably just leave the shower switch where it is, having removed the main cause of confusion.
I was planning to achieve this relaying of the cables by attaching some wire or string to the existing cable from the porch light to its switch, then use that existing cable to pull the wire down to the switch, then use that wire to pull both the existing porch and the exterior light cabling down together.
I'm so close to being able to do it too ...
By groping above the ceiling through the hole for the downlighter, I can feel that its existing cabling to the switch goes through a sizable circular hole in the same vertical plasterboard upon which the switch itself is mounted before dropping down to it, so there's no problem there. However, as indicated, by looking upwards from the switch using a small mirror and a torch, I can see that the wire goes through a batten with no apparent hole for it - I suspect they cut a slot in the front of the batten just deep enough to accommodate the one cable, and further there are globules of plaster there, which seem to be holding it fast.
So, unless I can think of a way of making a decent sized hole through the batten from the cutout for the light switch, and I can't, I'm not going to be able to get another cable past it without some destruction of the existing decor, which I'd rather avoid.
"Answers on a postcard, please!"
B****r!
It's like the shower and the wash>
On Apr 9, 9:30 pm, Java Jive wrote: (snip)
snipped presumably as you didn't actually answer any of my queries?
Best of Blitish ;>)
Jim K
I didn't think your questions were very relevant as I can see the wiring is (almost) as I had expected before starting out, and I did try and answer your question about the age of the property. I have no idea how old the wiring is, but probably not more than about 10-15 years.
So ...
There's only the one light, the downlighter, off the porch interior light switch. Power goes to a pendant batten fitting, from which comes the descender to the switch and, out of the pendant hole, the cable to the downlighter itself.
There is also just >
On Apr 9, 10:28 pm, Java Jive wrote: snip
fine - crack on then ;>)
Jim K
So the question becomes ...
How to drill a hole through a batten behind plasterboard, about 5 or
6mm in diameter, about 600mm up from the top edge of a light switch hole... given at least the following ...
Auger bit with brace shank of about the right size Drill bit with full shank of about the right size Drill bit with stepped shank of about the right size A brace A hand drill An electric drill
1/2" square drive socket set which includes 6" extension 4" extension Knuckle joint extension Ratchet handle... plus any other purchasable items not coming to more than, say, £15?
Can it be done? Get yer lateral thinking caps on!
Putting the bits of socket set together reaches at least about
260-270mm. I could possibly borrow further 1/2" extensi>
Spade bit and a couple of 600mm spade bit extensions. That will let you get the bit in at a shallow enough angle.
Or for a brute force approach, a 1m 16mm SDS bit, will allow you to introduce enough flex in the bit to get a hole parallel to the wall.
Failing that, a multimaster type tool will let you take out a section of plasterboard with a very narrow kerf cut, that makes replacing the removed bit quite easy, and the join easy to disguise.
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