Removing light fitting from wall

[NY]

I want to remove a wall-mounted light fitting, and I can't see how it's attached, so I can work out how to remove it.

The fitting is mounted on an internal brick wall (the previous owners seemed to like bare brick walls!). There is no visible screw hole anywhere. There is no play if the plate is pushed sideways or downwards, and a very small amount of springy play if the plate is pushed upwards.

There are two grooves of horizontal mortar between bricks that run behind the fitting. By probing with a piece of thin cable, the upper one is completely clear, also a torch will shine from one side of the groove to the other. The lower groove is blocked by something to the left hand side of a vertical centre line.

I'm baffled. I expected the plate to have some keyhole-shaped holes in the back that hook onto the heads of screws that go into Rawlplugs. The plate that the bracket is attached to doesn't seem to lift off the surrounding frame, and there's no screw in the vertical mortar groove at the bottom.

I'm reluctant to apply too much force, either by sliding sideways/vertically or by trying to lever it off.

We were thinking of putting some bookshelves against that wall, and routing the light cable up behind the shelves so as to power lights fastened to the top and shining down onto the shelves - or even removing that light fitting altogether.

Has anyone seen a fitting like this and know what the secret is? I even considered that the bracket might turn through 90 degrees and release a lock - like the opening of a secret door in the panel of a library in a children's adventure story!

[ss]

I would be inclined to get a piece of wood along the bottom and tap upwards, protecting the plate so you dont mark it.

[Andy Burns]

keyhole fixing? try to push on it and try to slide upwards ...

[NY]

Ah, right. It does move *very* slightly in that direction (upwards) but it was only a slight elasticity (as opposed to being totally immovable in the other directions) when I pressed firmly.

Maybe it needs a sudden tap, as you say, by hammering a piece of wood. I'll give it a go.

Keyhole fittings are all very well because they are invisible, but they are a pain to get the screw(s) set correctly so the device that is fastened doesn't wobble (too loose) or fail to go right to the end of the keyhole (too tight). I spent ages fitting some mug racks in the kitchen that had keyhole fittings, tweaking the screws slightly to get the optimum setting which allowed each rail to be dead horizontal. It would have been much better if those had had plates that were screwed to the wall, over which the brackets of the rails fitted, secured by an almost invisible grub screw underneath each bracket.

[Martin Brown]

Chances are it is a keyhole that needs to be tapped upwards to release.

But if you don't care about the fitting then isolate the mains, protect the wall and use as much brutal force as it takes to get the thing off.

Isolate the lighting circuit it is on first and make sure that it is off.

I found the light fittings in living room of a home previously owned by an electrician come TV mender were on the downstairs ring main!

I got a free subscription to What Tele-mender included in the price. (or rather he forgot to redirect his subscription)

[Tim Lamb]

Upmarket version might have the key slot angled away from the wall as well. Either way, for a single fixing it ought to rotate.

>

[Dave W]

I found this lamp which has a similar base to yours. There are no fixing details on the site but there is a query form.

[Martin Brown]

Which is why there are usually two screws and key slots.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Yes I have a couple of spots which are on keyhole screws. Bit of a bodge if you ask me. Brian

[ARW]

Go on then, how did you find it? Picture matching?

But that is an interesting site. Cheers.

[Andrew]

Antique brass 4-way extension - £170. Wow, I wonder who buys those ?.

[ARW]

I have customers that will.

I am not always working in Rosemary West's cell.