Safely Removing Wall Lights from New Flat Wall Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[philliperry77]

Hello,

I have just moved into a new flat. On the wall in the lounge are two lights which we want to remove and fill in the holes. Can anyone give me some instructions on how to safely remove them? I can get as far as getting the lights off down to the wires. What do I do with the wires?

Thanks,

Phil

[ericmark]

We have what are called safe zones which are defined by the presence of electrical items. So when we remove an item it means we have also removed a safe zone so any cables which were in that safe zone have to be made dead.

Often it is simpler to replace the removed electrical item with some other electrical item my wall lights have a conduit box behind them so putting a conduit box lid on the box would be OK, but then plastering over that lid would not be OK.

With my fathers wall lights I used a clock connector so it can be seen where the wires are but not intrusive however the clock connectors are now rather rare.

The standard method to wire lights is to take permanent feed to the light and then take wires to the switch from the light this means you have a feed variable for emergency lights and ceiling fans. However with wall lights often the switch back box is used as a junction box instead of the normal ceiling rose method. If this is the case then wires to the light can easy be made dead but there is really no convention with wall lights so it depends how yours are wired.