Re: CFLs and rental properties.

Apr 01, 2009 4 Replies

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Jasen Betts 17 years ago

> I also told him of the "flashing" problem, he remembered hearing
> complaints of intermittently flashing CFL's in bedrooms, - noticed
> because he noticed in a property inspection one woman had stuck a
> black cloth into a wall light fitting to avoid having to put up with
> flashing at night while trying to sleep. (great potential fire hazard
> I reckon)
>
> Not surprisingly, the electricians they use didn't seem to have a clue
> as to why. I advised a double pole switch.

that sounds like overkill and would be kind of hard to retrofit.

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ian field 17 years ago

If you have a neutral at the switch plate, a single pole changeover will do - simply switch the lamp feed from live to neutral

In the serious bodge category, if there's no neutral switch the feed to earth (I wonder how many lamps it would take to trip a ELCB?).

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Davo 17 years ago

I'd suggest the wiring has been incorrectly done in the first place and needs to be fixed. A big part of the wiring regulations now states that if you have knowledge of bad wiring you have a legal obligation to get it fixed or disconnected. You can't "turn a blind eye" so to speak. In industry this is known as "duty of care".

This is the sort of action that kills people. An electrician doing this would probably end up in gaol on a manslaughter charge.

Not sure what you mean here but domestic ELCBs trip at 30mA.

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Phil Allison 17 years ago

"Davo the D*****ad "

** I suggest you find out something about electricity before posting utter crap like this.

Starting with how a neon bulb operates.

Work your way up to stray capacitance and leakage current as you feel able.

However, the complexities of a CFL are forever beyond a moron like you - so give up on them.

** Irrelevant CRAP.

Davo the D*****ad is a just another pathetic "big noter" with a grab bag half baked facts.

** Wot a load of bollocks.

All electricians know to treat installed neutral and live wires with the same respect and care.

The public are never meant to touch either of them.

..... Phil

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Jasen Betts 17 years ago

Last time I checked it was perfectly legal to run the live(red)+neutral(black)

+earth(green+yellow) from the fusebox to the light fixture and then run a branch from there to the switch with a 2 conductor cable with just live(red) and switched live(white)

As has been observed the capacitance between live and switched makes this setup less than ideal for use with CFLs.

I doubt a cfl would conduct significant current if wired between earth and neutral, it does seem like a bodge though.

would putting a Class X2 capacitor in parallel with the lamp be better?

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