DIY Doctor UK DIY Forums

Hi guys,

Hoping for some help on what should be a very quick and simple wiring job...

I'm trying to replace a light fitting in my kitchen, I took the old one down no problem, however when trying to put the new one up I'm running into problems.

There are a whole clump of wires hanging from the ceiling, some red, some black, and some solid green. All the reds appear to be connected into a junction box, the green and black hang happily down, then there is a third smaller black cable.

Unfortunately when taking the old fitting down I only clocked that the smaller black cable was wired to earth, did not note which of the other two were neutral / live. Can anyone give me a point in the direction as to which way round these cables are?

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks

The black is not a standard earth colour, green or green/yellow are the permitted colours for earth conductors.

As you did not note the correct terminal position of each conductor, it would be foolish to continue without identifying the core conductors via testing.

Hi kbrownie,

Whilst that would be foolish, taking a guess, then when it doesn't work forgetting you have turned the power back on, and proceeding to use your steel screwdriver to attempt to swap them over would be even more foolish... But then again only an idiot would do that!

Think it might be time to put my hand in my pocket and I'll stick to painting, and maybe putting a few pictures up

Thanks for taking the time to reply!

Kind regards

[quote="Fev118"]Hi kbrownie,

Whilst that would be foolish, taking a guess, then when it doesn't work forgetting you have turned the power back on, and proceeding to use your steel screwdriver to attempt to swap them over would be even more foolish... But then again only an idiot would do that!
[/quote]
And there are plenty of them about!
It is very important to use safe isolation procedures and identifying what function the conductors are performing.

If have been to many properties and found the earth conductor/CPC in a varieties of colours and not of the colour type that would typically suggest it was an earth.