We had a small flood a couple of days ago. About 4 buckets full of water came through the living room ceiling from the bathroom above.
Of course it came through the ceiling rose, and we switched off the downstairs lighting circuit.
So, the question is whether it's now dry enough to turn the electricity back on again? How do you tell?
Is it one that you can unscrew, if so you could do so (electric still off) and just see how wet / dry it still is?
Sometimes the roses can hold water but rarely enough to get too close to the terminals (assuming the cord not a tight fit, you said the water was coming *through* the rose, not over the top of it)?
If it's still showing any signs of dampness, can you leave the rose cover lose safely?
The kids in the flat above daughters had an 'over energetic bath' (according to the parents when she went up to check if they had a leak etc) and quite a bit of water came though the pull switch.
It still worked but just (because it was wet), wouldn't turn the LED lamp right off. ;-)
I replaced the switch, then took the old one to bits, let it dry out and left it there as a spare.
Cheers, T i m
I assume you opened it all to dry. 2 days is pushing it. I open stuff up & give it a week to ensure zero failure rate.
NT
by the bang and the earth leakage tripping if it isn't.
+1
Megger? Or just see if the thing trips. Does the wire run in conduits or just loose and is there any likelihood of the water flowing to anywhere where there may be a junction box? Brian
Last time this happened to me was a very long time ago, and in those days it was simple to remove a floor board in the bathroom over the rose and see where the water was and mopped a lot up with towels then used a fan heater pointing down the hole to speed the drying. Brian
Not a good idea, you can damage stuff that way, but if it never went bang in the first instance, cos after all an unswitched live is in the rose all the time, then you are probably quite lucky!
Brian
I don't own a Megger - clearly a major failing, but what can you do?
We turned the electricity off early in the process, so maybe that explains the lack of bang.
I made a few holes in the ceiling, to aid the flow of water out of the ceiling space and removed the cover of the ceiling rose. There's definitely no water still sloshing around.
I think I'm happy enough with Tabby's rule of thumb answer to leave it a week to dry out.
I have dried stuff out with a hair drier and powered back up within the hour.
If there are no junction boxes etc above the rose then you should be good to go.
Is this a plastic pendant or an intricate light fitting? If a light fitting then swap it for a pendant and let the fitting dry out for a week.
It's a pendant.
I'm embarrassed to admit that I thought this happened on Monday or Tuesday, but my darling wife informs me it was Saturday. With the long days, it's no hardship to do without the ceiling lights. In the kitchen, we have lights under the cupboards, and elsewhere table lights.
I just need to fill the holes and get some stain block.
Nah, any oil based paint coat is usually enough. When it's not you can just alternate oil & emulsion or use shellac. 98% of the time stain block isn't needed - and when it is, spray is about the worst format to buy it in.
NT
Fuck me I have just checked my pulse to see if I am still alive.
I agree with you.
Spray it on. It's matt. It's the same colour as Dulux Brilliant White. You've done the whole job in five minutes.
Yeah and you don't run the risk of gassing yourself. Have used spray stain block in the past very succesfully with a single coat and without gassing myself.
Got some "EverBuild" the other month. It's a tin of pressurised acetone and some white pigment that doesn't stain block without two applications. Found that out the hard way.
And when the warning labels says "well ventilated area" they mean something like a garden gazebo, in the garden. Even with doors and windows open both sides of the house and a decent through draft the acetone was still at "not very nice" level and I'm not overly sensitive to organic solvents.
Have dug out a tin of ancient white oil based paint to try but it's gloss rather than undercoat. Not sure how well emulsion behave on that.
electricity
Clean water is a fairly good insulator I doubt the resistance presented by it would be low enough to go BANG. Might be enough to trip an RCD (if there is one on the lighting circuit), anything less than about 7,500 ohms will do that. Without and RCD it might fizz a bit, a 6A lighting circuit will deliver 1.3 kW without batting an eyelid and all that 1.3 kW will be dissipated in a thin film of water...
I'd be slighly more concerned about long term corrsion of the wires inside the cable where capillary action has drawn the water in. This is what insurance companies are worried about after floods.
The bulb in the pendant is only 15w, though. Similarly, the other pendants on the same circuit. So, isn't the corrosion more of an issue on power circuits?
And presumably the issue is the surface of the copper at the contacts? The main cross section of the copper wire won't corrode significantly?
Not necessarily, without RCD, I've been given a mild shock off a wet ceiling.
wires
What's that got to do with anything?
Ah I see, dissipation at a "weak point" dependant on load.
In theory a properly tightened screw terminal is gas tight let alone water tight.
I did say "slighly more concerned" which at time of drying things might extend to seeing if any water came out of the cables an hour or three after the ends had been dried. Dry kitchen/loo roll will show very small amounts of water. Other than that it would be a mental note to self that that fitting had got wet.
Scary
NT
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