house wiring wrong colour codes nearly got me

I live in a house built about 20years ago, Yesterday i decided that the BC light fitting had to be changed in the kitchen The existing light output is dismal even with a daylight CF.

So i changed it for a 4' fluro. the wiring in this house uses a standalone earth cable (2core red/black for power and single lead beside it for ground) so i unscrewed the BC holder, screwed the 4' up and wired it up with red (which had 2 leads) to brown, black to blue and standalone black to ground, all was good, re-set the breaker and the light came on even tho the switch was OFF. thought this was strange, so pulled the tube out to shut light off over night, come this morning, i sought out to investigate what was going on.. I removed the switch from the wall, this is where i discovered, THEY USED BLACK AS THE ACTIVE SWITCHED.... this is a single switch fitting.

what i had was active switched to the shell of the fitting, neutral to its spot and the red pair on active.

Im surprised that the shell didnt arc out or do anything nasty, and that the house used BLACK as an active,... good thing we have fast acting breakers, thats all i can say.....

Is it normal for black to be used with active power?

Reply to
matt2-amstereo
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the other thing that amazes me is the fact that a 4' can work without an earth, some were i read that balasted fittings needed an earth to actually work in the first place.... guess they may have been wrong

Reply to
matt2-amstereo

I thought the convention was that power is run to the fitting, the neutral and earth connected and the active run to the switch and back. If the power is at the switch perhaps it wasn't a professional installation?

Reply to
Poxy

I don't really follow what happened. Is your entire house black on the active? Or did they just use some black cable for a single switch?

Reply to
Dand

no, just this switch, its back to back with another light switch on the other side that switches active through a red feeder to the fitting. i had a look at it, cause i assumed the switch had gone dodgy, as if the contacts had stuck closed, but imediatly i saw that the only thing dodgy was the use of a black feeder to this one light fixture.

the usual convention is to have the active/neut cable feed to the lamp with the switch in line with the active. the oposite switch is done right, this one calls for the unswitched active to join on a spare (un used)screw connection in the lamp fixture which is available in BC lamp fittings but unavailable in fluro housing, which only have provision on the terminal block for active neutral and earth, therefor this extra unswitched feed needs to enter the fluro fitting (being in the same jacket that the neutral lives in) and be capped off so that a)it doesnt touch anything and b) so feed can continue to the remainder of lamps/switches on this circuit, Is this normal?

Reply to
matt2-amstereo

turns out this type of wiring setup (using the black leading from switch to lamp is common in the UK and the circuit is deemed a 'ring' , ive seem flats and houses at the pre-skin stage and looking at that wiring, they seem to use the more power-switch-lamp method instead of the power-lamp-switch-lamp this place seems set up with...

must be an old technique from our british roots or somthing

Reply to
matt2-amstereo

**You're an idiot and you live in QLD, right?

There's a reason why those people who don't know what they're doing use properly qualified people. Then there's the dead ones. They're the idiots. Sadly, in QLD, the standards for electricians is (or was) so low, that many problems occurred.

--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

For a few dollars you can buy a neon screwdriver/tester and work out the wires... if you going to rely on colours and reliable electricians you'll die one day.

Tom

Reply to
Tom

A proper sparky would have been wise to that. It was quite okay until pretty recently to use any (repeat - any) of the cores for active. More recently the active had to be sleeved if it wasn't the red or brown, then more recently again the earth couldn't be used at all for power. Here in NZ anyway, and I'm betting it's just a few years/decades behind Aus.

Ken

Reply to
Ken Taylor

**Don't sweat it. Just evolution in action. Morons doing their own electrical work need to be weeded out of our gene pool.
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

That is what I mostly find, but 50% also use twin core with red as active to the switch and black as the switched active back to the light fitting. Shudder.

Reply to
Terry Collins

That's actually what I meant - the run to the switch and back is twin-core, often red and white - isn't this how it's meant to be done? Is there some convention as to which wire is meant to carry the active to the switch?

Reply to
Poxy

nothing needs an earth to work... it's there for your protection. it needs an earth to meet regulations.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

There's no such rule.

power is typically run to whichever is closer to the fusebox and a branch run to the light or the switch.

highly possible that it wasn't professional though.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

Gee, thats a bit harsh. This is actually quite common, and not just here in QLD.

My guess is that it was wired the traditional way, then a second light fixure was wired into the switch at a later date.

Reply to
The Real Andy

From memory, a light fixture needs no earth. Is a flouro batten any different? There may be something to do with the hight of the fixture too. I did once know all the SAA rules, but they are long gone. I remember throwing away the book about 3 or 4 houses ago!

Reply to
The Real Andy

**Harsh? Get real. Only a complete idiot would wire up anything, without checking the wiring first.

This is actually quite common, and not just

**It has been traditionally more common in QLD, due to lower standards.
**Perhaps. He is still a moron. If he had no clue about what he was doing, he should employ someone who does. If the gearbox in my car goes belly up, I would not pull it out and then complain because I could not get it back together again. I would employ a professional to do the job.
--
Trevor Wilson
www.rageaudio.com.au
Reply to
Trevor Wilson

its all good, i worked out what the problem was, just didn't expect that they'd use black to carry active....

as far as using or not using earth, certain types of fluro fittings wouldn't correctly fire each time, but i dont believe that has anything to do with pre-heat type ballasted fittings.

this is an ex RAFF house, maybe theres the explaination?

Reply to
matt2-amstereo

Its an old hangover from post war sparkys , many could do the work so were considered ok yet were not in effect tradesman , many used a common earth rail down the roof space and looped the active in a twin across the active then switch then fitting to make the circuit and the neutral really was added when required to make suitable , was helping a mate recently in an old house in Brisbane and most of it was a rewire but some was very old ( about 40 years) with everything bundled and taped in a group star fashion in the roof all actives via the first light switch , (a real head shaker :)

Reply to
atec

I think you will find an EARTH must be carried to every light fitting whether or not it is metallic so that it is there if there is a change later. Someone who needs to know Australian Regs could confirm. I am just an old radar tech who tries to stay aware of these things for my own good.

Some flouros were temperamental if the frame was not earthed but that was to do with striking the "arc" inside.

--
John G

Wot's Your Real Problem?
Reply to
John G

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