Changing a Light Fitting

Changing a light fitting is the sort of job that a DIYer would expect to do very easy, but on many occasions it isn't. The DIYer might expect to see three wires - live, neutral and earth. But most of the time they will see a whole lot more wires than that.

Depending on how your lighting circuit is wired your light fitting can double as a junction box, so you have one cable coming into the light from the previous light in the circuit, then a cable going down to the switch and back, and then a third cable running off to the next light fitting.

Many DIYer's attempt to change a light fitting themselves and often the wiring is as above, and they fail to take note of where the wires are terminated in their existing light fitting before they take it down or fail to understand the wiring altogether. This usually results in two problems, 1- the DIYer puts all the same colours of wires together and when they put the electricity back on - it goes bang and blows the fuse or trips the circuit breaker, or 2- again the wires are connected wrongly, but this time there is no bang, but lights in adjacent rooms do not work.

At this point this is where we normally receive a phone call and are called to rectify the problem and do so usually within a matter of minutes. I am not the biggest fan of DIYer's carrying out electrical work but taking two minutes to take note of where the wires go in the existing light fitting can save a lot of problems when installing new light fittings. If DIYer's take note of the wires and are still not sure of the theory behind where the wires should go in the new light fitting please do not attempt to guess, as this can be very dangerous and can damage your new light fitting, not forgetting damaging themselves. It usually takes only a few minutes for us to install new replacement light fittings and usually at a cost much less than your new light fitting.

Do not take any chances if you are not sure.