Hi All, I am new to the site and have recently started doing more and more electrical work in my house, nothing too major, changing face plates, light fittings etc, however I have encountered an issue that I cannot sort out.
I have a 2 gang light switch where it is looped in the switch. Nothing too strange there. There are a total of 5 sets of cables entering the switch, as far as I can understand there should only be 4. The live in, live out, then the 2 cables that are running to the respective lights. Therefore I don't know what the 5th cable is for, also I think whoever wired in the previous switch did something else wrong. There was a connecting wire from one side of the switch to the other, which from what I understand should have been on the COM terminals, presume this is to carry on the power to the other side of the switch and then out to the rest of the ring. however they had put it on the L2 terminals, if they had also put the 'live' wires in the L2 terminals would that have the same effect as if they were all in the COM terminals? I have managed to get the fuse box to come back on but none of the lights are working. To make matter worse, one of the 'live' wires is a T&E in a grey sheath, but the other T&E in a grey sheath goes out to one of the lights, the other light has open red, black and earth cables going to the switch, but there are another 2 sets of cables like this in there as well. Am sure after reading this you may understand why I am confused. How can I find out what wire does what without stripping all of my plaster and ceiling? Thanks
I have a 2 gang light switch where it is looped in the switch. Nothing too strange there. There are a total of 5 sets of cables entering the switch, as far as I can understand there should only be 4. The live in, live out, then the 2 cables that are running to the respective lights. Therefore I don't know what the 5th cable is for, also I think whoever wired in the previous switch did something else wrong. There was a connecting wire from one side of the switch to the other, which from what I understand should have been on the COM terminals, presume this is to carry on the power to the other side of the switch and then out to the rest of the ring. however they had put it on the L2 terminals, if they had also put the 'live' wires in the L2 terminals would that have the same effect as if they were all in the COM terminals? I have managed to get the fuse box to come back on but none of the lights are working. To make matter worse, one of the 'live' wires is a T&E in a grey sheath, but the other T&E in a grey sheath goes out to one of the lights, the other light has open red, black and earth cables going to the switch, but there are another 2 sets of cables like this in there as well. Am sure after reading this you may understand why I am confused. How can I find out what wire does what without stripping all of my plaster and ceiling? Thanks