I posted last week regarding a lighting cable being too short in the wall to reach my new light fittings.this is still annoying me lol, I will try and elaborate further , my dad was a retired electrician he passed away just under 3 yrs ago , when he fitted these wall lights it was before the new regs and wiring was still black and red , I know regs now don’t allow chok blocks unless enclosed in a casing.
originally my house had a hallway ,but I removed the wall to open up the lounge, we ripped the ceiling down and before new went up he put wiring in for downlights ,and also 3 uplighters on the walls , one near the bottom of my stairs in what was once the hall, and 2 on the opposite wall.
currently redecorating and have chosen new lights to replace the plaster uplighters.
the things are the most annoying to wire up due to the position they have the connection at.
there simply isn’t enough wire coming from the wall where the exiting lights are to allow them to get them into the back of the fitting on the light. I can’t release any cable as it just doesn’t move so my initial thought was extending it , I got crimps and a crimping tool ,but the wire attached to light fitting is smaller than the 1.5mm cable in wall,so this was a fail as it falls out.
the light on the bottom of the stairs has 2 red and an earth which someone queried here why he would have used cable with dual red ,I don’t know and sadly can’t ask him ,but it’s been that way since 2004 ,all wiring came out the wall into a chok block on every light and then the pre fitted wires on the light fittings went into the block which sat in the recess behind the lamp , it wasn’t pushed up inside the cavity.
the other 2 lights have the red ,black and earth ,the one opposite the bottom of stairs must have ran inside new ceiling to the one at bottom of stairs and then goes across around 1.5m to the other where it terminates , they are all operated from the same dimmer.
I’ve noticed that this piece of cable between the 2, runs in my entry along the wall covered in metal trunking , so I’m thinking the best way for those 2 would be to pull that 1.5m length of cable back through and replace it with longer so that it gives the extra I need to reach the new connection on the lights, or do I just replace it as it was ,but this will mean having to add around 6cm of cable into the block that is still there and then into the fitting on back of light ,which I feel is a little crude ,also wouldn’t be in with regs as there isn’t enough space to fit an enclosed case to put the chok blocks as I tried with some.
I know they havent been enclosed since 2004 but I know that’s no excuse for them to stay that way but they have never caused any issues so is bad to refit them that way ?
I did chip away the filler in the hole which exposed a bit more cable ( the earth did have sleeving on ,I just removed it while trying to move the cables ), extending the cable on the 2 seems simple enough but that doesn’t solve the issue of the one at bottom of stairs ,only option for that is to extend as I can’t access the cable now due to laminate being fitted upstairs .
thanks in advance
originally my house had a hallway ,but I removed the wall to open up the lounge, we ripped the ceiling down and before new went up he put wiring in for downlights ,and also 3 uplighters on the walls , one near the bottom of my stairs in what was once the hall, and 2 on the opposite wall.
currently redecorating and have chosen new lights to replace the plaster uplighters.
the things are the most annoying to wire up due to the position they have the connection at.
there simply isn’t enough wire coming from the wall where the exiting lights are to allow them to get them into the back of the fitting on the light. I can’t release any cable as it just doesn’t move so my initial thought was extending it , I got crimps and a crimping tool ,but the wire attached to light fitting is smaller than the 1.5mm cable in wall,so this was a fail as it falls out.
the light on the bottom of the stairs has 2 red and an earth which someone queried here why he would have used cable with dual red ,I don’t know and sadly can’t ask him ,but it’s been that way since 2004 ,all wiring came out the wall into a chok block on every light and then the pre fitted wires on the light fittings went into the block which sat in the recess behind the lamp , it wasn’t pushed up inside the cavity.
the other 2 lights have the red ,black and earth ,the one opposite the bottom of stairs must have ran inside new ceiling to the one at bottom of stairs and then goes across around 1.5m to the other where it terminates , they are all operated from the same dimmer.
I’ve noticed that this piece of cable between the 2, runs in my entry along the wall covered in metal trunking , so I’m thinking the best way for those 2 would be to pull that 1.5m length of cable back through and replace it with longer so that it gives the extra I need to reach the new connection on the lights, or do I just replace it as it was ,but this will mean having to add around 6cm of cable into the block that is still there and then into the fitting on back of light ,which I feel is a little crude ,also wouldn’t be in with regs as there isn’t enough space to fit an enclosed case to put the chok blocks as I tried with some.
I know they havent been enclosed since 2004 but I know that’s no excuse for them to stay that way but they have never caused any issues so is bad to refit them that way ?
I did chip away the filler in the hole which exposed a bit more cable ( the earth did have sleeving on ,I just removed it while trying to move the cables ), extending the cable on the 2 seems simple enough but that doesn’t solve the issue of the one at bottom of stairs ,only option for that is to extend as I can’t access the cable now due to laminate being fitted upstairs .
thanks in advance
,prob weighed in the copper
