extending lighting circuit

[Garibaldi8]

Hello - I am a long-time lurker on this group. I have searched previous posts, but I just can't find an answer to this question. Apologies if it has already been covered somewhere.

I have a long hallway which turns a corner at the halfway point. My ceiling light is currently at the halfway point. I would like to move the light to the centre of the front half of the hallway, nearer to the front door. I have taken up the floorboards above the current ceiling light point, and disconnected the ceiling rose. Having done so, I have found that the cables to the ceiling rose come from the back of the house, so I thought I would need to get some kind of junction box, fit it at the point where the ceiling rose now is, and then run some new cable to my new light position. The problem is, there are three twin-core-and-earth cables entering the current ceiling rose, and two much smaller red-sleeved cables. It appears that the red-sleeved cables are running to switches (two switches operate this light) but I was not expecting to find three other cables - just two, if it is a loop-in circuit. Is it possible that a third cable is supplying another light, as a sort of 'spur'? If it is, is there any way I can achieve my objective of placing my new light at some distance from the old point - can I get a junction box which would allow all the old cables, plus a new cable to be connected?

Thanks in advance Angela

[Set Square]

Why not use the old rose as a junction box, but move it *above* the ceiling. [To do this this without disconnecting everything may need a slot cutting in the plasterboard - but you'll have to patch the old hole up, anyway]

You then need just one T&E - connected where the dangly cable currently connects - to extend to a new rose position a few feet away.

Are you sure you want to do this though? The leg of the hall with no light is going to be extremely dark!

[Garibaldi8]

That sounds like it would do the trick, Set Square - hadn't realised it was possible. Many thanks for your quick reply. (the back section of the hall already has another light, so the new arrangement should be OK)

[Set Square]

Just one more thought. Technically, junction boxes with screwed terminals (or roses used as junction boxes!) need to be accessible for maintenance purposes - and not sealed up where they can't be got at. I'm sure that a lot of people ignore this requirement without too many dire consequences, but if you can, cover it with a small section of floorboard, held down with screws so as to be easily removeable.

[Stefek Zaba]

Highly possible and not at all unusual or in any way wrong. Lighting circuits are radials, and the "backbone" perm-Live-nd-N-and-E can be branched off in as many places as makes sense for convenience and economy in cable running. So - especially at a central location like your hall's dogleg corner - it's common to have one "incoming" perm-L T&E, which then feeds 2 or (more rarely) 3 further branches of the same lighting circuit.

This'll work just fine. Even less work (avoiding the slot in the plasterboard at the cost of leaving the rose in place!) is to take off the pendant, but leave the ceiling rose in place, running your new single T&E to the place you want the new rose from the outer terminals of the rose where the flex now hangs. If you or next owner ever decides to replace or supplement (with a low-energy bulb, naturally!) the lighting by using both old and new positions, all is in place.

If, on the other hand, you will be disconnecting (to avoid making a hole big enough to pass the rose through), then with good labelling it's not appreciably harder to wire up the usual 4-terminal junction box than the existing ceiling rose. Just use one of its 4 terminals for each of the 3 sets of wires currently going to the three "multihole" sections of the rose (N, perm-L, switched-L) and the fourth for the sleeved earth wires. You may find (if your fingers are as fat as mine, and your best set of needle-nosed pliers is lost somewhere, as are mine, ghash moan whinge, only three or four other pairs to hand ;-) that a 30A junction box gives you a bit more room for all the wires than the 20A size.

HTH - Stefek

[Owain]

"Garibaldi8" wrote | The problem is, there are three twin-core-and-earth cables entering | the current ceiling rose, and two much smaller red-sleeved cables. | It appears that the red-sleeved cables are running to switches (two | switches operate this light) but I was not expecting to find three | other cables - just two, if it is a loop-in circuit.

Although the normal way of wiring 2-way switches is to go to the first switch in Twin&E (as for a one-way switch) and from the first to the second switch in Triple&E, it is quite permissible to run Triple&E from the rose to

*each* switch. In this case, Twin&E plus a single have been used instead of Triple&E, which is also not unusual.

You can check this by looking inside the switches.

The third Twin&E is the supply in.

The red-sleeved cables should be red insulated with an outer grey or white sheathing.

You can replace the ceiling rose with a junction box above the ceiling and run 1 Twin&E to the location of the new light, although as Set Square says, the other half of the hallway may be a bit dark. You may need to use choc blocks for some of the connections (*inside* the junction box) as I make it that 6 terms (incl the earth) will be required). A deep surface pattress box with blanking plate may provide more space than a typical 5A junction box.

Just label *every* wire carefully. Earth not shown below.

----Neutral In-------------------------------------O |

----Live In---------------O O-----------| O---| | | | O-----| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Lamp | | | | | | Com L1 L2 L2 L1 Com

Switch 1 Switch 2

Owain

[Al Reynolds]

And you would never have got one out to do it anyway. It's a good feeling when you do something properly yourself!

Sounds good. Al

[Peter Ramm]

Is this always the case - I am about to replace two fuse boxes with a CU. There are two cables fed from the same 5A fuse - I assumed they were a ring of all the lights.

[Stefek Zaba]

Yes, it's always the case - as close to 'always' as any generalisation can be. Ring circuits are almost unknown outside the UK, and here we use them only for our 13A-socket power circuits.

Your two cables feeding from the same way in the CU are just two arms of the usual radial circuit - it happens to have been most convenient for whoever put the circuit in (whether as one planned job or as in a series of add-ons!) to branch from the CU - as good a place to branch as any other position on the circuit.

Cheers, Stefek

[Al Reynolds]

And also useful if you decide to split the circuit so you can have more load (bulbs) on each one. (having checked that it isn't a ring of course)

Al