Electric light wiring... no earth. plz help?

Question

i have a wall light. i dont like the low light it gives out so i want to add a ceiling light. i dont have existing wiring for a celing light so i want to take the wiring up from the wall light. the thing is i only have 2 wires on my wall light blue and brown no yellow. i dont know what to do.

Answer 1

If the wires are from a switch remember that switches only opens or closes one line if you are in the USA you have 110 to 120 volts, so one line is current, and the other one is neutral, the switch is only attached to one of the lines, so it closes or opens the circuit. So if your  wiring from a switch you have to find the other line, you could take it, from a contact,, contacts have both lines, current and neutral.  It's easy to find out, if the wires you have, at the wall  the light blue wire and the brown wire, just connect a light there, if it doesn't turn on, you only have one line,  if it does you have both lines this test is completely safe, just make sure, you turn off the main switch, while your connecting. If you are taking the wires from an existing light it's for sure that you have both right lines. Lights are not usually grounded Sorry but my English is not that good

Answer 2

call in an electrician who knows what he is doing..

Answer 3

Standard light wiring in mid to old houses.

Brown is live, blue neutral, ignore earth.

Answer 4

Your wall light was not wired incorrectly. Standard lighting cable use to be 2 core red/black no earth (Australia).

Most light fittings never had an earth s***w and a lot were double insulated. The common white batton holder now has an earth terminal to loop earth wires but is not used in the fitting because it is almost all plastic and a light globe does not use an earth.

The brown/active and light blue/neutral wires are the standard colours for flexible cable and is very common in light and fan fittings.

If you are going to use a batton holder for your ceiling light then you will not need an earth. But if you are going to use a fluorescent light fitting or any fitting that has any metal parts then you will need the earth.

You can look in your ceiling for an earth wire green/yellow to connect to or run an earth wire to an existing power outlet earth.

The cost  for an electrician to do the job would not be that much so if you have doubts don't do it yourself.

I hope this helps.

Answer 5

Quite common, either the entire lighting circuit is class 2 or that particular wall light was installed without an earth.

Unless you are going to call in a professional to install a earth then simply buy a class 2 (double-insulated) centre fitting.

Answer 6

It sounds like the wall light was incorrectly installed.  Get in a qualified electrician to check it out.

Answer 7

Your wall light should have an earth. The safest way to do DIY electrics is from a 13 amp socket with a fused plug. Failing this, I would get an electrician to advise you.

Answer 8

Again I agree 100% with jayktee9 sounds to me like it was a BAD DIY job using twin flex rather than T&E all you can do is to get a sparky to sort it out safely for you

Answer 9

I've never seen so many incorrect or misleading answers!!!!!!!

If the cable with the brown and blue cores has a grey sheath, then it must be twin AND EARTH cable since twin core is not made with these colours. The (bare) earth conductor may have been wrongly cut off flush with the grey sheath, in which case bare a bit of the sheathing back and you will expose enough earth conductor to connect to. It could be that someone has wrongly put a piece of twin FLEX in the wall, in which case there will be no earth wire. Since the cores are brown and blue the wiring must have been done in the past 2 or 3 years. PS you refer to 'Yellow' - Earth is yellow and green!

I assume you are in the UK, not US or Australia?? since this is the UK and Ireland site.