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What is the best way to wire ceiling lights?

Arran Cameron
The ceiling rose junction box with its loop-in wiring is now really showing its age and is no longer a practical (or even safe) installation for most residents who wish to install fancy light fittings. It is still, however, the most common arrangement for new build houses and rewires, probably as the result of the electrician's training and how they consider it to be the norm or they cannot think of (potentially better) alternatives.


So, what is the best way to wire ceiling lights? Should neutral wires be taken to the switches or not?
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    Re: 'officially used' I read that as 'most commonly used'... and it fits.


    *edit: that being said, anyone finding any random cable, should NOT 'ASSume'. Is that T&E a live feed, is it a switch drop? Is it 12v SELV for a bathroom extractor long since removed?


    Is the 3 core a 2 way lighting circuit? L+N+SL for a fan? Central heating control (maybe converted to 24v and using only the yellow and earth cores? (found that one a few days back).


    To my old and jaundiced eye, there is too much 'caring about what the next sparkie will make of what he or she finds' and not enough 'understand basic electrical principles'. I tend toward the conduit system, even with sheathed cables. Lives loop at the switch, Neutrals at the ceiling rose. And it's a ring main, not an RFC, (that's a rugby football club), voelcb's are fine and get off my lawn!


    [part of that was joking, but seriously, there are as many correct ways of doing it as there are people who can interpret the regs. Just don't be a douche about it, see one of David Savery Electrical's recent videos where someone had swapped the uses of black and grey in a 3 core SWA, halfway down a garden, for no obvious reason]

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  • 0
    Re: 'officially used' I read that as 'most commonly used'... and it fits.


    *edit: that being said, anyone finding any random cable, should NOT 'ASSume'. Is that T&E a live feed, is it a switch drop? Is it 12v SELV for a bathroom extractor long since removed?


    Is the 3 core a 2 way lighting circuit? L+N+SL for a fan? Central heating control (maybe converted to 24v and using only the yellow and earth cores? (found that one a few days back).


    To my old and jaundiced eye, there is too much 'caring about what the next sparkie will make of what he or she finds' and not enough 'understand basic electrical principles'. I tend toward the conduit system, even with sheathed cables. Lives loop at the switch, Neutrals at the ceiling rose. And it's a ring main, not an RFC, (that's a rugby football club), voelcb's are fine and get off my lawn!


    [part of that was joking, but seriously, there are as many correct ways of doing it as there are people who can interpret the regs. Just don't be a douche about it, see one of David Savery Electrical's recent videos where someone had swapped the uses of black and grey in a 3 core SWA, halfway down a garden, for no obvious reason]

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