Strange wiring for outdoor lights

[Migueloplumbelo]

Hi

I've been planning to fit an outdoor junction box at the front of my house to hide a large brickwork hole and properly house the wiring connections and was wondering about the wiring terminals I discovered.

Two outside lights are wired in and two separate terminal blocks are used to connect to the downstairs light circuit. From the 2 cables coming from inside the property only 1 live and 1 neutral are used and the other live and neutral are terminated together.

Is this wrong?

I've attached pictures

My plan is to use 5 way wago connectors to simply put all 4 lives together, all 4 neutrals and all 4 earth's and have them in an IP67 junction box. This would hide the hole and make a neat finish

Thanks in advance for any help on this situation

 

[loz2754]

You need to copy exactly the wiring as it is now.
The red and black terminated in the same connector are what feeds the switch with a permanent live.

 

[Migueloplumbelo]

You need to copy exactly the wiring as it is now.
The red and black terminated in the same connector are what feeds the switch with a permanent live.

Thank you for the response and I'll do as you said.

What are your thoughts on filling the brickwork hole with expanding foam or is it better to just leave it as it is with a junction box covering it?

I'll post a picture of my work possibly tomorrow if I get the time to do the job

 

[littlespark]

Don’t use expanding foam as it could affect the pvc coating on the cable.

I’d slip a short length of plastic conduit over the cables while disconnected as far into the wall as it can go, and cement or foam around the pipe so it doesn’t touch the cables directly.

 

[Migueloplumbelo]

You need to copy exactly the wiring as it is now.
The red and black terminated in the same connector are what feeds the switch with a permanent live.

Thank you for the response and I'll do as you said.

What are your thoughts on filling the brickwork hole with expanding foam or is it better to just leave it as it is with a junction box covering it?

I'll post a picture of my work possibly tomorrow if I get the time to do the job

 

[Migueloplumbelo]

I realised I didn't follow manufacturers instructions with the wagos to strip back to 11mm. I've corrected this now

 

[James]

Looks like you have done a nice job.

certainly makes the front of the house look a lot neater.
if I had to pick fault,

1 water will creep in the box through the hole in the back of it, in a few months/years the box will be half full of water.

2 there is bare copper showing on both sides of the single connector block.

if you want to go for a really great job,

1 drill a 4 or 5mm hole in the bottom of the box to let any condensation or water that creeps in, drain out.

2 redo with shorter stripped length or even better, replace connector block with wago.

3 fold the wago connectors to the top of the box so any water ingress drains off the cables instead of into the connectors.

please don’t take above as a dig at your work, I have seen a lot worse by qualified electricians. Just a couple of tips to make it better.

 

[Migueloplumbelo]

Looks like you have done a nice job.

certainly makes the front of the house look a lot neater.
if I had to pick fault,

1 water will creep in the box through the hole in the back of it, in a few months/years the box will be half full of water.

2 there is bare copper showing on both sides of the single connector block.

if you want to go for a really great job,

1 drill a 4 or 5mm hole in the bottom of the box to let any condensation or water that creeps in, drain out.

2 redo with shorter stripped length or even better, replace connector block with wago.

3 fold the wago connectors to the top of the box so any water ingress drains off the cables instead of into the connectors.

please don’t take above as a dig at your work, I have seen a lot worse by qualified electricians. Just a couple of tips to make it better.

Thanks for the sound advice and i will take it all on board to improve the job.

I never thought of any of those great points. On the point of water entry through the rear I would of assumed the box being IP67 that the rubber M20 entry point was sufficient to seal things properly.

I'm happy to take criticism on my work if it means a better job end result.

 

[James]

The box is IP67 when there are no holes in it.
if it was fitted with the correct IP67 glands then it could be assumed that the Assembley would also be IP67
in the real world, water will get in eventually.
like I say it is a nice job already and it was meant as a few tips not a criticism.

 

[Migueloplumbelo]

You need to copy exactly the wiring as it is now.
The red and black terminated in the same connector are what feeds the switch with a permanent live.

Looks like you have done a nice job.

certainly makes the front of the house look a lot neater.
if I had to pick fault,

1 water will creep in the box through the hole in the back of it, in a few months/years the box will be half full of water.

2 there is bare copper showing on both sides of the single connector block.

if you want to go for a really great job,

1 drill a 4 or 5mm hole in the bottom of the box to let any condensation or water that creeps in, drain out.

2 redo with shorter stripped length or even better, replace connector block with wago.

3 fold the wago connectors to the top of the box so any water ingress drains off the cables instead of into the connectors.

please don’t take above as a dig at your work, I have seen a lot worse by qualified electricians. Just a couple of tips to make it better.

I've made the required tweaks on the junction box with a 4mm hole bottom, upturned wagos and reduced the exposed copper.

I did originally install an inline wago as opposed to a double (side by side slot) one but the lights flickered and cut out on a few presses of the dimmer switch. So I returned to using the terminal block with reduced length of copper. Everything seems fine now.

The inline wagos I got were from Amazon @£5.44 for 10. I hope they weren't knock off ones or is it a case of wagos not being compatible to join a live and neutral cable in the same wago unit?