Made me jump!

Mjward · Jun 9, 2021

Moved into a new house and before I make a start on the serious renovation, thought I'd mount a TV so I have some evening entertainment.

Easy, the previous owners already had one up, just need to move along slightly for new pilot holes for the new bracket. Or so I thought.

Drilled first pilot hole, no issue.
Drilled second pilot hole and lights in room went out. (I didn't connect the two immediately as the microwave was on and this earlier triggered the RCBO).
Drilled third pilot hole and poof, bit of a spark, RCBO triggered again and told me something was not right.

The things that are alarming me are:

1) I've drilled a couple of inches horizontally from where previous mount was installed. Closer to a power socket but nowhere near above. Further away from a light switch and in no logical route of a cable run

2) the room lights are switching off when there was a power overload earlier on the sockets. Don't know why these would be on same RCBO.

This house is completely new to me less than a week ago so don't have a full understanding of the electrics but there s growing number of warning signs that something isn't right

telectrix · Aug 2, 2021

oil lamps. oil has been the same for 200 years, no changes.

Moley · Aug 2, 2021

telectrix said:
oil lamps. oil has been the same for 200 years, no changes.

Not so many whales around theses days. Makes the oil a bit more expensive

Mjward · Aug 6, 2021

Knocking out a partition between a bathroom and separate toilet I came across an odd (to me) wiring setup so just wanted to check if it's actually odd or common.

I'm familiar with a shaver socket being wired into the loop of the ceiling rose but in this house the light circuits loop at the switch. So the setup had the shaver socket connected directly to the light switch and the light fitting coming off the socket (ie if you don't turn the light on you can't shave)

telectrix · Aug 6, 2021

unconventional, yes. rough as f&ck , yes.

Mjward · Aug 7, 2021

telectrix said:
unconventional, yes. rough as f&ck , yes.

Hahahaha thanks for confirming! Must admit I do let out a giggle every time I uncover electrics in this place. It's as if some has deliberately done the worst installation possible ???

Mjward · Aug 10, 2021

Today's curiosity:

Looking to wire for staircase LEDs. As a reminder, this house has live/earth looped at the switch and neutral looped at the light fittings. Downstairs hallway switch controls the downstairs hallway light (1-way) and upstairs landing light (2-way). Looking behind the switch I have managed to track most but two things have me confused:

1) I note L2 (and L1) is wired in for the downstairs switch (ie 2-way). Now I've searched high and low and there is no second switch but given the house had a major extension, it's possible it was originally a 2-way. Would it also be possible that when the potential second switch was removed, the sparky just connected the L1 and L2 wires together and buried it somewhere so that effectively it has reverted to a one way switch (but would require me to keep the L2 and L1 wired in?

2) A cable is coming into the downstairs switch with two live and one earth. I get one live and earth continues the loop but have no idea what the intention would be for the second live (both connected to COM)

All quite standard on the upstairs landing switch, also a combination of 2-way (landing light) and 1-way (loft light) with landing light fed off the downstairs radial and the loft from the upstairs as per below

A final point on this is with regards to neutral. I know aside from issues with regards to interference with this running independently, there is risk that the upstairs light is live from the downstairs circuit and neutral from the upstairs. Is there a multimeter test I can carry out to determine this?

With regards to what I am actually trying to achieve, I will be changing the downstairs 2-gang switch to a 3-gang and introducing a new switch at the top of the stairs i.e. the stair lights can be controlled from either the top or bottom. From a live/earth perspective it's relatively straight forward. From a neutral perspective, there is no obvious neutral near the top stair switch, can I take a feed from any neutral point on the ground floor circuit? (will keep on ground floor circuit to marry up with landing light treated the same)

Apologies for long post!

Mjward · Aug 11, 2021

Ignore (1) ... I finally found the other 2-way switch but obviously wasn't meant to as for some bizarre reason it had been boxed in.

Anyway. please have a look at the above, I guess for me the most pertinent point is ...as long as it's the same circuit, am I right in thinking it doesn't really matter where I find a neutral to wire to?

Mjward · Oct 19, 2021

Been a while since I've been able to add to this thread (thankfully).

Ripping out a partition in a downstairs toilet and reminded why I like to do it myself... Slowly

Was not expecting the inside of the door frame to be used as a route, nor for the partition frame to be butchered for access. Maybe it's within regs but my guess is it's another sign that the "builder" was also the "electrician"