Wiring nightmare!
Moderator: Moderators
- LadySpark
- Newly registered Member
- Posts: 81
- Joined: Wed Sep 11, 2019 11:59 pm
- Has thanked: 85 times
- Been thanked: 17 times
Wiring nightmare!
Help! I am absolutely perplexed by a customer's wiring.
Standard consumer unit, two bars, one RCD. Kitchen extension has been added so kitchen and utility lights on one side of consumer unit, kitchen and utility sockets, cooker and shower in utility on the other side with the RCD.
I was asked to change lights and switches to metal. Arrived and found no earth wire in old lighting circuits up and down in the house but kitchen extension did have PCP on light line. Quoted for rewiring and customer doesn't want to pay so much "just changing a few light fittings and switches". I agreed to fit replacement plastic light fittings and plastic light switches. One of those immaculate show homes where you don't dare leave the tiniest mark around the switch or a single crumb on the floor. Customer seemed satisfied and paid.
Next day I get a call that the shower and garage light stopped working. Customer genuinely believed that the shower was "on the same electricity" as the lights so it is my fault. OK, external isolator switch stuck in the on position so must have burnt on the inside. I can replace that.
Garage light doesn't seem to be on any circuit! Certainly not any of the three lighting lines. However, I really wish I had not set foot in the garage!
Whoever did the kitchen extension ran all wires along the garage roof using clip direct. No metal bands but its not a fire escape route. Just wires everywhere. I think I figured out which was cooker, shower, sockets and extension lights. Garage light is on none of these, nor on the upstairs or downstairs lines. There is a REALLY old wylex fusebox in the garage. No MCBs or RCDs just the old wylex fuses. Only the garage freezer seems to be running from this. Not the garage light. The only way I could cut power to the garage light was to turn off the main switch at the consumer unit. Turning off light MCBs did nothing to cut power, nor did turning off wylex.
I just do not understand this wiring at all! I have stared at it for ages, followed wires, tested, searched for more hidden connections and can't figure out how this house is wired. The garage light has an earth wire, so I was expecting it to be on the kitchen lights line - illogical based on location - but it is not as it remains live when those lights are definitely powered off at the consumer unit.
HELP PLEASE!!!! What do you do when you just can't figure it out? I embarrassed myself and have to return on Saturday as I'm fully booked all week.
Standard consumer unit, two bars, one RCD. Kitchen extension has been added so kitchen and utility lights on one side of consumer unit, kitchen and utility sockets, cooker and shower in utility on the other side with the RCD.
I was asked to change lights and switches to metal. Arrived and found no earth wire in old lighting circuits up and down in the house but kitchen extension did have PCP on light line. Quoted for rewiring and customer doesn't want to pay so much "just changing a few light fittings and switches". I agreed to fit replacement plastic light fittings and plastic light switches. One of those immaculate show homes where you don't dare leave the tiniest mark around the switch or a single crumb on the floor. Customer seemed satisfied and paid.
Next day I get a call that the shower and garage light stopped working. Customer genuinely believed that the shower was "on the same electricity" as the lights so it is my fault. OK, external isolator switch stuck in the on position so must have burnt on the inside. I can replace that.
Garage light doesn't seem to be on any circuit! Certainly not any of the three lighting lines. However, I really wish I had not set foot in the garage!
Whoever did the kitchen extension ran all wires along the garage roof using clip direct. No metal bands but its not a fire escape route. Just wires everywhere. I think I figured out which was cooker, shower, sockets and extension lights. Garage light is on none of these, nor on the upstairs or downstairs lines. There is a REALLY old wylex fusebox in the garage. No MCBs or RCDs just the old wylex fuses. Only the garage freezer seems to be running from this. Not the garage light. The only way I could cut power to the garage light was to turn off the main switch at the consumer unit. Turning off light MCBs did nothing to cut power, nor did turning off wylex.
I just do not understand this wiring at all! I have stared at it for ages, followed wires, tested, searched for more hidden connections and can't figure out how this house is wired. The garage light has an earth wire, so I was expecting it to be on the kitchen lights line - illogical based on location - but it is not as it remains live when those lights are definitely powered off at the consumer unit.
HELP PLEASE!!!! What do you do when you just can't figure it out? I embarrassed myself and have to return on Saturday as I'm fully booked all week.