Bathroom Ceiling Light Replacement Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[gordon861]

I am trying to replace the old ceiling light in my bathroom with a small LED dome. So as I was removing the existing fittings and checking that nothing was live with my voltage detector pen and not touching anything metal, I confirmed that the pen was working and then turned off the switch, still all good.

Until I finally pulled off the main cover, once I had bare wires (more wires than expected) I started probing again and got a live wire warning. At this point I stopped, took a photo, and closed it all back up again.

Can anyone explain what is going on here, why are there so many wires?

[Mr White]

That is how I would expect it to be wired. It is called the loop in method, there is nothing wrong with it, and as you found switching off the switch does not "kill" anything.
I wouldn't want to see you get it all wrong, and as it is not what you expected, I can only suggest you get a competent person in to do it for you.

[gordon861]

Thank you for the reply, I did do some further research and found the following link that answered all my questions.
bathroom-ceiling-light-replacement-t56566.html#p134737

After seeing that I switched off the breaker and rechecked everything to confirm it was as expected.

My plan now is to use WAGOs to join each group of wires together and add my dome light. And I have printed a spacer to space the dome from the ceiling so that'll give me space to keep the WAGOs below the ceiling so they are still reachable in the future, rather than pushing them into the ceiling void.

I feel competent enough to do this, I was just surprised when I found so many wires (the downstairs lights have just had two cables), and looking at the info it all makes sense to me now.