DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

I'm not an electrician but fitted an outside security light & it will not work. I tapped into an existing twin earth cable that feeds the landing and lounge lights.

The security light looked pretty strainght fwd to wire up. I put brown to live, blue to neutral and green/yellow to earth..but no joy

The only time that the security light will come on, is when I switch the landing light on from downstairs and then switch off the landing light upstairs....both the landing and security light will then start to flicker ! so I have to turn the landing light off downstairs to switch both the security light and upstairs light off.

Any help much appreciated

I would guess you have connected to switch cable not supply cable. In which case the black wire (or blue) will not be neutral but switched Line. So with one switch arrangement the two lights will be in series.

From the description above you have tapped into the worng wires.

As well as that I would imagine the flickering is either from the brown and blue having 240V and hence not enough potential differnece to power the light.

Or you have a dimmer switch which causes a buzzing and flickering with energy saving bulbs.

Thanks for the advice guys..

Could you let me know what it is I need to do, as I am not electrically minded.......In ley mans terms please :-)

There is a dimmer switch in the lounge and I did have an energy saving bulb in the security light which I have now changed to a regular. The odd thing now, is the security light does not come on at all now. Just the upstairs light flickers !!

The upstairs light is not on a dimmer swicth.........thanks

Sorry I am no sparky and cannot really advice. But you need to tape the live incoming wire to your circuit and not the switched live in the middle of the corridor lights.

Try searching for wiring ceiling rose or corridor switches and try and compare your wires to the diagrams. Be careful of live wires obviously.

My plan was to change my dimmer switch for a normal switch instead of the bulb. What I have seen is that cold is a great way to blow bulbs really easily. (I have even noticed having them facing up, personal theory is the heat distribution causes blowing)

Undo everything that you have done and run the thing on a flex ans just plug it in to a socket outlet. It needs to be fused.