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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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    Sparkingchip:

    Lively jubbly! If nothing ever goes wrong with the circuit.


    How on earth do you fault find on a circuit installed with concealed junction boxes?


    Let not beat about the bush and say that installing a lighting circuit using concealed junction boxes is a stupid idea.


    Andy Betteridge 




    Concealed or inaccessible?


    I have no objection to concealing technical things in buildings, providing that labelling or documentation exists to identify their location, but I am strongly opposed to making things inaccessible like floorboards nailed down hard over central heating pipe joints or electrical cables.


    Surewire junction boxes are MF but I strongly believe that whenever they are installed they must be reasonably accessible even if it's below a hatch in the floorboards.

  • 0
    Are you really going to take up the Axminster carpenter, laminate flooring or the porcelain tiles laid on a plastic sheet sub flooring to undertake electrical installation fault finding?


    Of course you’re not going to and generally you won’t need to if you plan correctly and put all the terminations in the back of the electrical accessory boxes, for example by putting all the lighting circuit terminations in the back of the switch boxes and use the terminals supplied in the light fittings.


    Electrician’s take pride in stating that they have wired a complete new installation without using any junction boxes, as they see the inclusion of junction boxes as bad design.


    Andy Betteridge
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    Like Andy Sparking Chip I have always held a view that junction boxes are a no no from new. Exception being a ceiling rose is just a decorative junction box. So from new no junction boxes except a rose or just in a lofthatch if you want to use one of those fire wire whatsit thingys. Under floorboards generally a no.

    Now for additions you might need to put a junction in. If you are using a back box to an accessory as a junction box you might well need to cause disturbance for say a switchwire. If you are using a rose as a junction you might avoid disturbance around the rose itself to get a cable in for running an extra light say and only have to consider maybe the extra light itself and more probably its switching arrangement which might be in another room that is having work done anyway.
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    Some years ago I went to see a job where the lounge ceiling had been overboarded and skimmed by some plasterers who simply pushed the existing ceiling rose into the void between the floor joists above it.


    To fit a new light I quoted for half a days labour, to allow for getting the furniture out of the bedroom, lifting the carpet, underlay and floor to make a hole in the new ceiling to push the cables back down through it, then reinstate everything.


    The lady also wanted new down lights in her kitchen, again the plasters had just pushed the existing ceiling rose up above the ceiling then over boarded and skimmed, the bathroom above had a ceramic tile floor, I think I allowed a day and a half to install half a dozen lights.


    So two days, plus materials to install seven lights and I was wondering if I had underestimated the time, whilst the lady thought I was over quoting.


    To do the kitchen lights another bedroom had got to be partially emptied to get the carpet, underlay and floor up then lots of fishing would be needed to get the cables in.


    Had there been a junction box under either floor with a bad termination the same issues would have existed.


    To access a junction boxes in electrical circuits under bedroom floors could easily entail several hours work adding a lot of money to the customers final bill for remedial work to an existing circuit.


    Installing lighting circuits using junction boxes is not good installation practice.


    Andy Betteridge
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    Would anybody have a problem with junction boxes in a loft space?


    If you have done your work properly and used MF JBs, why would you subsequently need to engage in fault-finding?


    Under-floor heating certainly puts the kybosh on gaining access to any wiring from above, so you had better get it right first time!


    We have been discussing lighting circuits, but how do you avoid junction boxes at the branches of radial (socket) circuits?
  • 0

    Arran Cameron:




    Sparkingchip:

    Lively jubbly! If nothing ever goes wrong with the circuit.


    How on earth do you fault find on a circuit installed with concealed junction boxes?


    Let not beat about the bush and say that installing a lighting circuit using concealed junction boxes is a stupid idea.


    Andy Betteridge 




    Concealed or inaccessible?


    I have no objection to concealing technical things in buildings, providing that labelling or documentation exists to identify their location, but I am strongly opposed to making things inaccessible like floorboards nailed down hard over central heating pipe joints or electrical cables.


    Surewire junction boxes are MF but I strongly believe that whenever they are installed they must be reasonably accessible even if it's below a hatch in the floorboards.


     




    Thats fine until a few years down the line when such records have been lost, and some poor electrician is struggling to fault find on a lighting circuit with only one cable at each light and switch. Then he's got to play russian roulette taking up carpets and boards to guess where this mystery central box you've installed is hidden under the floors. Any such box needs to be easy accessible and to easy to find. Even in a loft you'll be up and down the ladder alot disconnecting circuits to break down the fault, so whats the real benefit?

  • 0

    We have been discussing lighting circuits, but how do you avoid junction boxes at the branches of radial (socket) circuits?



    Tee off at a socket (or at the CU/DB). If needs be specify some of the "better" socket brands that support 3off 4mm² conductors in each terminal.


     - Andy.
  • 0
    Completley ditto with you Sparking Chip and like you I think it`s poor practice to have a JB normally, I`d reluctantly allow one in the loft next to the hatch because in all fairness probably not much different difficultywise than using a ceiling rose as a JB.
  • 0

    AJJewsbury:




    We have been discussing lighting circuits, but how do you avoid junction boxes at the branches of radial (socket) circuits?



    Tee off at a socket (or at the CU/DB). If needs be specify some of the "better" socket brands that support 3off 4mm² conductors in each terminal.


    That may work unless Madam has set her heart on some wooden sockets, or other design in which appearance is more important than durability or function. It may work well for a row of sockets behind a desk or in a kitchen, but you are surely not going to have a horizontal chase all the way around a sitting room? So either you use a JB here and there, or else you bring the wires up (or down) to a socket and back, in which case it is beginning to look like a ring. ?

  • 0

    Dbat:

    Thats fine until a few years down the line when such records have been lost, and some poor electrician is struggling to fault find on a lighting circuit with only one cable at each light and switch. Then he's got to play russian roulette taking up carpets and boards to guess where this mystery central box you've installed is hidden under the floors. Any such box needs to be easy accessible and to easy to find. Even in a loft you'll be up and down the ladder alot disconnecting circuits to break down the fault, so whats the real benefit?




    If the records are kept in their proper place, which is within or adjacent to the DB (514.9.1), how do they get lost?


    And please somebody, tell me why a competently constructed installation should become faulty? ?

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