I've have had a lot of experience of "DIY house electrics" (changing sockets, adding sockets, lighting circuits etc.) over many years but what happened to me yesterday has completely floored me. We have a single ceiling light in the bedroom with a single one way switch. There also a couple of picture lights which seem not to work and seem not to have a live feed (there is a twin gang switch near the floor which doesn’t seem to do anything either). I have bought a new ceiling light fitting and a dimmer switch. I have changed both before in other rooms no problems. So I was expecting a single T&E into the top of the back box (the switch line to/from the ceiling rose), and two T&E at the rose (a feed spurred off the main lighting circuit, and a switch line). I was a little apprehensive because this is in the extension of the original 1980’s house and every time I have done anything in the extension (built in 90’s) I have found shoddy workmanship. Maybe this could happen again? Picture 1 shows what I found in the back box, Picture 2 shows that I detected only one live cable into the box, the others are neutral, Picture 3 shows the rose with FOUR T&E cables (looks like 3 but it is definitely 4) coming into the rose. I am very confused. The 4 core cable from the back box, runs down to the floor .. I haven’t inspected under the boards yet as it is a lot of hassle taking up sections of chipboard. The T&E from the back box runs up the wall, roughly vertically (it seems to deviate near the ceiling?!).
What I want to do is disconnect all the unnecessary cables and rewire the T&E to the back box as the switch line (which as can be seen from picture 1 it clearly is NOT!!!), and find the feed and switch lines to the rose, ignore the others and wire up as a conventional switch. Is this going to be possible with the weird setup that seems to be in place? Any advice please guys.
What I want to do is disconnect all the unnecessary cables and rewire the T&E to the back box as the switch line (which as can be seen from picture 1 it clearly is NOT!!!), and find the feed and switch lines to the rose, ignore the others and wire up as a conventional switch. Is this going to be possible with the weird setup that seems to be in place? Any advice please guys.
