Correcting a botched wiring job

djb1848 · Post by **djb1848** » Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:01 pm

Hi everyone,
I was tidying out the loft in my new house recently (built 1990) and noticed a dangerous-looking set of wiring stuffed beneath some insulation. The other connections for the upstairs lighting are all housed in 30A junction boxes, but as luck would have it this is the bathroom light, likely exposed to damp as there is currently no fan in there, and whoever fitted it decided to wrap the terminal boxes in insulation tape which is now dusty and surrounded by what appear to be those little nuggets you put in a hamster cage (you don't want to know what else I found up there from previous owners

). I've attached a picture of the mess.
Anyway, I want to enclose them properly like the others, but am concerned about the amount of cables, in this case 5. One goes to the switch, one to another pair of lights in the same room which run on the same switch (and cable), and two others head off in different directions to other rooms (so I'm guessing power in/out). However, the fifth one (right-hand side in white) connects to another junction box in the loft that seems to be feeding most of the upstairs light connections, including this one.
So how can there be 5 cables unless the circuit is set up in some strange Y/T shape? I'm concerned the whole thing has been set up wrong. And is there any more life in those old cables or should I change them too?
Any help would be much appreciated. I've read some great stuff on this forum so thanks in advance.

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:08 pm

The big cable in the fore ground, what is on the other end of it?

As for junction boxes, you can use 5A ones on lighting (nothing wrong with using 30A ones, but they are big)
You may want to consider wago connectors Click here

djb1848 · Post by **djb1848** » Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:14 pm

Someone-Else wrote: ↑Thu Oct 08, 2020 5:08 pm The big cable in the fore ground, what is on the other end of it?

As for junction boxes, you can use 5A ones on lighting (nothing wrong with using 30A ones, but they are big)
You may want to consider wago connectors

Thanks for quick reply - the big cable in the foreground runs to the lights on either side of the mirror in the same room which run on the same switch. At least I assume so because it heads down into the nearby studded wall and then another cable comes up and runs back down the wall further along, where the other light is. The other grey ones run to different rooms, and the white one on the left goes to the switch, the other white one to a junction box.
I was thinking of using 30A JB so I have plenty of space to install a fan in future? Or is this still OTT?

Someone-Else · Post by **Someone-Else** » Thu Oct 08, 2020 7:57 pm

You can use what ever you like, so long as it is bigger than the minimum. On lights the minimum is 5A, so yes 30A is...........ok.
But once you have used wago connectors............you will wonder how you did without them.