wiring sockets from ceiling rose advice needed

[choco]

I need some electrical advice. I'm doing a small project with a suspended ceiling in a hallway. This is just a stretched canvas which acts like a giant light shade. The proper ceiling above is solid concrete with a ceiling rose and any further wiring has to sit on top of it. The lighting for this project requires two sets of 3 x 20w low voltage halogen spots which mount on the top ceiling. I have these from Ikea and they each come with a small transformer to be mounted on the ceiling and 3 pin plugs. I want the most flexibility to change the lights or turn off one of the sets. So... I thought I'd leave the plugs on and fit a double socket on the ceiling, replacing the ceiling rose with a 4-way junction box. Is this an unsafe idea? Should I fit an extra fuse between the junction box and socket? Thanks for your input.

[BigWallop]

There is nothing stopping you from replacing the ceiling rose with a socket. The only thing I'd suggest is that you obtain proper locking plug and socket units so that the weight of cable or other mechanical stresses don't pull on the plugs and yank them out. Normal plug and socket systems aren't really up to being hung from a ceiling, which you might notice if you've ever accidentally tugged a flex and the plug pulls slightly out the socket and the appliance stops working, even though the look like they are still properly married together.

Hager have the right stuff for this job in their Ashley / Klix range. Have a look here for details:

luck with it.

[N. Thornton]

I assume a twisy wire tie would be way cheaper and less hassle. Its against regs to fit 13A sockets to lighting rings.

NT

[choco]

Any idea why? Is there another kind of 3 pin socket I could use? There are 4 roses on the circuit including this one.

[Stefek Zaba]

To stop any mumpty plugging heavy loads into the lighting circuit.

For your needs, if the 13A sockets are out of reach (you mentioned on the ceiling with thin canvas below, right?) the practical chance of anyone plugging the vac into them is tiny, and a 4-way strip with a suitable warning label ("EXISTING LIGHTS ONLY!!") would be sensible enough. If the sockets are just holding plugs, and you clip the cable to the ceiling so there's no serious weight pulling them out, mounting the block on the ceiling would be OK. If you have wall-warts or similar, you should mount the 13A block on some sort of 90-degree bracket arrangement, suspended shelf, or adjacent wall if still covered by your bit o'canvas, so that the weight won't gradually pull the wallwarts out over months.

Put a 3A fuse in the 4-way block, as further protection against some fool (you when half-asleep, say!) plugging any heavier load in. And when you come to sell, take away the 13A blocks...

HTH - Stefek

[Peter]

Ikea's latest plug in 20va 12v lighting transformers are now switched mode psu and are very small and light, probably weighing as much as a normal plug.

However I guess you should really put them to one side and use a couple of propper wire in - wire out low voltage lighting transformers (e.g. a

50 VA one could cope with two Ikea 20w lamps). These can then be wired to the flex from the old celing roses.

As far as practable keep the low voltage cable length as equal as possible if supplied more than one lamp from a transformer.

[Bob Mannix]

You can still obtain the round 3-pin 5A plugs and sockets for just this purpose.

Screwfix have the plugs and sockets.

[Kalico]

I would cut off the 3 pin plug and wire them into fused connection spurs with small fuses in.

That way there can be no doubt about plugging in any other plugged appliance up to 13A.

HTH Rob

Replace 'spam' with 'org' to reply

[wpollock]

so you will be adding a total of 120 watts ( 1 amp I believe) to an existing supply line. You need to determine the following:

1. what existing electrical services ( wall receptacles,light fixtures,fans,etc.)are on the circuit you will be adding the lights to? will adding the lights overload the existing breaker causing it to trip?
2. what size is the breaker for this circuit?
3. what type and gauge is the existing electrical wire you will be connecting to? If aluminum, I don't believe you would want to combine the two unless you have knowledge of how to use special splicers where you will make your connection.
4. how will you hang and control the new lights? by using a existing wall switch that runs to the existing ceiling rose?

If you are certain adding the lights will not overload the breaker and you have copper wire then you would probably be safe making a solid connection at the rose and hanging your new lights.

Disclosure: I AM NOT A LICENSED ELECTRICIAN AND AM ONLY GIVING YOU WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE RELEVANT QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER

[Tim Watts]

1/2A

Valid points, but adding 120W load is *very* unlikely to overload a domestic circuit in a typical house.

[Tricky Dicky]

More to the point I think Choco finished this project 10 years ago.

Richard

[Tim Watts]

I don't know - he could be me...

I am into my 6th year (or it might be more - gawd). However, in my defence, every job that is complete is *actually* complete[1] and each year we do make significant progress. It's a long job when you both partners work and you have kids who needs time for this that and the other... Still depressing though...

[1] The bath has a presentable, but otherwise *temporary* panel - I think everyone's been there...

[Tricky Dicky]

Been there, got the tee shirt Tim, there are always those tuit jobs. At the last house over the 30 years we were there we rewired, re-plumbed everythi ng right down to stop c*ck, replaced every piece woodwork, and practically re plastered 80% of the walls and the list goes on. We had friends who used to come round to spot what had been knocked down or where any new holes we re and they would go away disappointed if they could not spot a bare sectio n of pink plaster. Domestic management finally got see every bit of pink pl aster obliterated a few months before we put the house up for sale which wa s a section at the back of the airing cupboard and only because she did it herself. Well you do not want to spoil them too much!

Richard

[John Rumm]

I had a list of jobs to do at the last place - finally threw it away when we sold it ;-)

[ARW]

Could you not have saved it for the new house:-)

[Graham.]

Valid points if you live in N America as I suspect wpollock does. Flash Newsgroups hides his IP, unlike most web Usenet leaches.

Do they use alooominum cable?

[Tim Watts]

What gets annoying is 3 of my jobs are still holding a building notice open. The big push this and next year is to get that signed off. LABC don't care, but it limits the choice of insurers.

[Tim Watts]

Exactly... We are *never* getting rid of the house I've been fixing... IME any "new" property always has stuff wrong with it, even things built in the last 10 years.

[Tim Watts]

We (the UK) used to use ali cable - for a brief period in the 60s or 70s (I forget). Nasty stuff in a domestic environment. Still plenty of it in commercial/industrial settings too. Imperial College has some - we know, because it did the aluminium creep thing and a distribution neutral came disconnected and floated quite a long way from one of the phases. Basically such stuff needs to be on a maintenance schedule of checking terminations.