Hall, stairs and landing light switches

[Jon Fairbairn]

We currently have a light at the top of the stairs (on the upstairs lighting circuit, switched from upstairs and downstairs) and a light at the bottom (on the downstairs lighting circuit) switched from downstairs near the front door.

I want to change the arrangement (primarily add a switch at the other end of the hall) and someone recently told me that if the upstairs and downstairs lights both serve the staircase (they do) then they should both be operated by the same switch. Is that true?

I also want to add a light at the back end of the hall, as the light at the front doesn?t light the back very well. So that would mean three lights in parallel, an SPDT switch upstairs, another SPDT at the front of the hall and an intermediate switch at the back of the hall. It would make sense from the load balancing point of view to have this all on the upstairs lighting circuit, but that would mean that there is a light at the back of the hall on the upstairs lighting circuit. Is that OK?

I?m asking about regulations here, not whether it would work!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In the average house, you don't need to much worry about lighting load. Even less so if using LEDs, etc. And even less on the load of an individual circuit like hall lights.

If going to the effort of re-wiring to add extra switches, make sure you have enough and in the very best places.

For example, my hall lighting can be switched from the front door, half way along the hall were the door to the living room is, at the far end to the kitchen, and upstairs on the landing. (you can have as many intermediates as you want.)

The landing light is also switched from several places.

Seems to be that many houses have switches sited for the benefit of the electrician who installed them rather than the end user.

[Andy Burns]

My landing light could be switched from the landing or the hall, but the hall light couldn't be switched from the landing, so I dragged in an extra 3+E cable to fix that.

No need for a switch near the front-door, I have an occupancy sensor, more convenient when you arrive with an armful of shopping.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave Plowman (News) explained :

'Intermediate switch' is a key word for the OP to look up where a light is switched on or off from more than one location. You can install as many intermediate switches on an existing two-way switched circuit as might be needed.

[Jeff Layman]

Isn't this an opportunity to use wireless switching, such as that shown here :

You could put the switches where you want them, and add extra ones as you think might be needed. See diagrams on page 3 of

[John Rumm]

It is desirable to be able to switch all the lights from both ends, it could be with multiple switches though. I don't recall seeing an actual rule that says the stair lighting should be controlled as a unit. (at least not an electrical regs rule - there may be other building regs that have something to say on it)

Wiring regs wise, its ok if a little unusual. There is no hard and fast rule that circuits must be split between floors - sometimes other arrangements can make more sense.

Generally its better to have lights on each floor energised from the circuit that powers that floor. (even though the switch positions may have a gang that is made live from a different circuit - that is more "expected" than having a lamp fitting live from a different circuit.

[Bob Eager]

He is aware of that, and mentioned such.

I believe his question is entirely about regulations; whether you can have multiple downstairs light fittings on an upstairs circuit.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its certainly an opinion.

I am not sure building regs cover this

[tabbypurr]

Regulations don't care where you put your switches or whether you have 1 or 3 lights on a switch. It's a nonissue.

NT

[Max Demian]

Hey! The switches aren't pairing! Go upstairs with a torch and switch it on up there! OK, now switch the lighting circuit off and on again!

[Dave Plowman (News)]

What if you want to go straight upstairs to the toilet? Leaving the house and want to switch lights off? Leave the outside lights on? And so on.

One thing you can be sure of is that 'auto' lights hardly ever do exactly what you want. ;-)

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I have all the corridor lights on their own circuit. Which then allows working lights from a room should it trip. Also means all the switches on one plate are on the same circuit. Not the most economical way to wire things, though.

[Jon Fairbairn]

I guess they may have been thinking of building regs rather than electrical ones.

Thanks. That was my main concern.

Right. It?s the unexpected nature of it that bothers me a bit: wiring unexpectedly live can be more stimulating than desirable, though given the intended switch arrangement it would be a fool who switched off the downstairs circuit and expected it to kill the rear hall light.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Most jobbing electricians soon learn never to take anything for granted. ;-)

[tabbypurr]

There are a whole lot more unexpected things in life than that, some of whi ch actually matter.

NT

[ARW]

That's how I read it.

And of course it is perfectly acceptable if the CU is properly labelled as to what each MCB controls.

There is also a myth that you cannot have a lightswitch fed from two different MCBs despite 90% of UK houses having got this type of installation in the hallway switch.

[ARW]

I did an EICR a few months ago. A neat looking MOD installation that was done about somewhere around 25 years ago (an educated guess based on the CU type and when RAF Finningley closed down) with some alterations after the MOD had sold the property (but not IMHO to the CU).

The first thing I do on an EICR is see what each MCB controls on a one by one basis. When I turned off the downstairs sockets MCB they stayed on. I then flicked off other MCBs in turn until they switched off. The immersion heater circuit (now feeding a combi boiler) was on the downstairs socket circuit and one leg of the downstairs ring was in the immersion MCB.