house wiring wrong colour codes nearly got me

matt2-amstereo · 2006-01-08T12:05:53+00:00

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?

Jan 08, 2006 43 Replies

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, nospam 20 years ago

I note no-one so far has said words to the effect: don't meddle with wiring unless you are a licenced electrician, not only for your sake but for future residents. But, one wonders, would a licenced electrcian necessarily have found this one?

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Ken Taylor 20 years ago

wiring

future

People did say that, just not as politely. And yes, a competent sparky checks for jolts first, even after pulling the fuse.

Ken

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Trevor Wilson 20 years ago

**Did you miss this post from me?

**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.

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matt2-amstereo 20 years ago

so that you know, (incase you had a problem with picking up on it) I mentioned what happened as a way of letting people know that problems do exist and that they shouldnt take things at face value....

But i guess you missed that bit.

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