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Strange cabling for kitchen under-cabinet

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Comments

  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 8,644 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 12:30PM
    Apodemus said:
    Noting that I am not an electrician...

    If everything was wired correctly, you are managing to get the current to flow from live (red) to earth (no-sleeve), but not to neutral (black)?  Normally, connecting live to earth would have blown a fuse somewhere, so perhaps the neutral and earth wires have been connected wrongly at the switch?  Alternatively, you have a live, a switched live and a neutral.

    My next stop would be to do the same investigation on the switch - checking continuity on the (disconnected) output side of the switch, through to the exposed end of the cable.

    I still think this really is a job for an electrician rather than guesswork.
    There's also a risk that disconnecting things (like the switch) to carry out a DIY investigation it will make the electrician's job harder in working out exactly what is going on, possibly resulting in them having to do more work (at cost) than would be necessary if they were just called in to start with.
    There's some jobs it makes sense to DIY - this doesn't appear to be one of those.
  • FreeBear
    FreeBear Posts: 17,215 Forumite
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    FaceHead said:
    TMSG said:
    grumbler said:
    TMSG said:

    Yeah, I was first assuming that the naked wire (though w/o the green/yellow sleeves) was earth but it doesn't seem to be the case.

    So if I check the red/naked pair, this indeed comes up with ~240V when . The other two combinations all show 0V.
    Are you saying that red-black isn't 240V? And by "switched on" what switch do you mean? If the one in the kitchen, why do you measure after the switch, not before?
    YES that is precisely what I am saying all along.

    If one is switched live and the other is the permeant live then you would expect to see 0V difference between the red and the black wire. A very common - even the most common - setup. In most light switch setups a piece of twin and earth flex is used to take permanent live to the light switch and bring back switched live - meaning that the flex is carrying live+switched live, not the live+neutral the colour coding off the shelf suggests.
    But..... If this cable is indeed a "switched live" as is being suggested, there would be another cable (possibly a pair) from the (lighting ?) ring to provide Live & Neutral feed.

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  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 8,644 Forumite
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    FreeBear said:

    But..... If this cable is indeed a "switched live" as is being suggested, there would be another cable (possibly a pair) from the (lighting ?) ring to provide Live & Neutral feed.


    Exactly.  Which is why the results the OP has got from their testing suggests a potentially dangerous fault... which needs someone with the right knowledge and experience to fix it.
  • Apodemus
    Apodemus Posts: 3,410 Forumite
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    Section62 said:
    I still think this really is a job for an electrician rather than guesswork.
    There's also a risk that disconnecting things (like the switch) to carry out a DIY investigation it will make the electrician's job harder in working out exactly what is going on, possibly resulting in them having to do more work (at cost) than would be necessary if they were just called in to start with.
    There's some jobs it makes sense to DIY - this doesn't appear to be one of those.

    Happy to agree with you on this, although I rather suspect that ship has already sailed! :)
  • TMSG
    TMSG Posts: 200 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 1:24PM
    Folks, the wall switch plays no role whatsoever in this saga (other than that the cabling from it to the cabinet has been botched). It's simply switching the lights on or off.

    So if the switch is off then there is NO voltage on any pair of wires. If the switch is on then there is 240V as described ONLY between the naked and the red wire. It is probably, as I wrote in my OP, a case of an Electrical Cowboy having botched what was a simple, straightforward job when the cabling was done back in 1992.
  • Section62
    Section62 Posts: 8,644 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 1:41PM
    TMSG said:

    Folks, the wall switch plays no role whatsoever in this saga (other than that the cabling from it to the cabinet has been botched). It's simply switching the lights on or off.

    So if the switch is off then there is NO voltage on any pair of wires. If the switch is on then there is 240V as described ONLY between the naked and the red wire. It is probably, as I wrote in my OP, a case of an Electrical Cowboy having botched what was a simple, straightforward job when the cabling was done back in 1992.
    Yes to the second BiB - IMV the situation you described can only occur if there is a potentially dangerous fault in the wiring which has been there all the time.  Hence my advice to get an electrician in to sort it out properly, and steer clear of the guesswork/assumptions based on how things should be done, not how they have been done.
    If you only have one T&E cable to the lights then it is obvious that it cannot be safely acting as a switch wire, given the voltage measurements you've made.

    However, note again that the first BiB isn't necessarily true.  You've measured 0V between pairs of conductors, which is not the same as having no voltage on them.  A potentially lethal voltage can be present and still give you a 0V reading in the situation you have.
    Call an electrician.
  • Apodemus
    Apodemus Posts: 3,410 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 2:06PM
    TMSG said:
    Folks, the wall switch plays no role whatsoever in this saga (other than that the cabling from it to the cabinet has been botched). It's simply switching the lights on or off.

    I'm afraid that makes no sense to me - if the cabling has been botched from the switch to the cabinet, you're not going to sort that at the cabinet end of the run! 

    As s62 says - potentially dangerous situation and you seem to be into electrician territory.
  • TMSG
    TMSG Posts: 200 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 2:47PM
    @Apodemus: I am not at all looking to sort this from the cabinet end... that's clearly not gonna work and was never my intention.

    I was simply asking whether anyone knows of a reason why somebody would do it that way, given that this looks like the original cabling done by Barratt (the builders) or some of their subcontractors. As quoted from my OP:

    > Is this sort of cabling to be expected or is it perhaps a case of some electrical cowboy doing a quick but bad job?

    It looks as if the latter is indeed the case. Question answered and case closed.

    Thanks to all for their help.
  • grumbler
    grumbler Posts: 58,629 Forumite
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    edited 14 December 2021 at 7:16PM
    TMSG said:
    Folks, the wall switch plays no role whatsoever in this saga (other than that the cabling from it to the cabinet has been botched). It's simply switching the lights on or off.

    So if the switch is off then there is NO voltage on any pair of wires. If the switch is on then there is 240V as described ONLY between the naked and the red wire. It is probably, as I wrote in my OP, a case of an Electrical Cowboy having botched what was a simple, straightforward job when the cabling was done back in 1992.
    This means that the black (neutral) wire is either damaged/broken somewhere or not connected well.
    It's possible that it goes through the switch (not just the switched live). That's why I suggested to look inside.

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