Hello,
Does the OSG (17th ed.) cover something as basic as wiring a socket? Or do they think that people who read the OSG already know something as simple as that? I wanted to look-up the requirements for earthing a metal back box. I had a quick look through the OSG but could not find it mentioned.
I seem to remember someone else asking a similar question on this group. If I remember correctly, the reply was that if you were wiring a socket, which included an earthed screw terminal, you did not have to run a separate earth wire from the box's earth terminal; provided that the earthed screw hole was screwed onto a fixed tab in the box, not the moveable one. If you are wiring something without an earth, such as a light switch, then you have to connect to the box. Have I remembered that correctly?
I have bought some round pin sockets to use with a table lamp and some back boxes from Toolstation. The sockets only earth one screw hole and guess what, it's the one above the moveable tab! The problem is that I put the boxes in, plastered, and papered around them so I do not want to try removing and rotating the boxes. Am I right to think that in this case I need to run the extra earth wire from the box to the socket?
I want to have two boxes with a switch in the top one, running to a socket in the one below. I was hoping to fit a 2-gang light switch to use a system like they have in hotels: switch one for the main ceiling light and the adjacent switch for a table lamp. That means quite a few wires:
L, switched L, and E from the ceiling rose
3-core and E for two way switching of ceiling light twin and earth to table lamp switch twin and earth from table lamp switch to socketCan I comfortably fit all four earth wires into the box's earth terminal? Or would it be advisable to crimp or otherwise connect some of them together separately?
TIA