cjbeattie wrote:
I was thinking of using the original ceailing output... which i will
plaster over when finished and then splitting the wires into 4 ways
(via a junction terminal) and then changing the bulbs from 50w down to
20w (ive read quite a bit on heat etc from 50w bulbs) anyways this will
keep within the 100w i presume that the hall light had in the first
place....the cavity between the floors... where the lights will be is
quite small its a prewar (ex council house) and hence the old design..
the gap is only around half a foot... still enough i hope for the
downlighters because ive bought the bloody things now lol...
Yup that ought to be OK. A couple of things to check though.
Firstly most mains downlighters are metal bodied and hence must be
connected to an earthed lighting circuit. There is a small possibility
if the house wiring is very old that it is not earthed. Looking at the
cables will tell you. Modern cable will have two insulated wires in it
(typically red and black in your case) plus a third bare wire.
If you are missing the earth wire then *do not* inttall the downlighters
unless they are marked as "double isolated" (the double isolated logo is
two small concentric square boxes).
anyways the lights i have like i said are from wickes and on the box it
says...
WICKES
4 Mains Halogen Round fixed downlights
OK they probably take bulbs of type GU10 then. These are ok for direct
connection to the mains. You will get to know that bulb number well! ;-)
i presume (and hope) these ones will be ok to wire direct.... i will
also use the plant pot idea for the heat dispersion of the untils when
under the floor boards.... i assume they mean REAL CLAY plant pots yes?
as plastic would melt...
Yup, your traditional clay/terracotta jobbie.
you said "If you go the mains route then you simply need to replace the
existing
ceiling rose with a junction box and wire out from there to each light
position. You can use a combination of "star" wiring, or daisy chain,
whichever is simplest."
forgive me for being ignorant but what is a junction box exactly? (is
It looks like this: (also available in brown)
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/...18802&ts=63625
Note this is a four terminal box[2]
it a terminal block connector? will that suffice? and what is a star
wiring or daisy chain wiring? thanks... i think i will go down the
mains wiring option
Star wiring is where you run a separate wire from the junction box to
each light. So if you have four lights there are four wires coming from
the junction box - one to each light.
Daisy chain is where you run from the JB to the first light, and thence
the second and third and fourth. You could also use some combination of
the two if required[1].
anyways thanks for the help john
(probaly saved me from burning my
house down lol)
Hopefully it is fused or has a micro circuit breaker somewhere which
ought to stop that happening!
ps....if you have msn messenger then please feel free to add me.. mine
is ***Katncraig86 (AT) hotmail.com********
then i will have a online guro if i need one
If you post here there you will usually get a quick answer since there
are plenty of folks in this newsgroup well able to answer these sorts of
questions.
[1] Running wires in ceilings is easy if they run in the same direction
as the joists - you can do it all from the ceiling side. If however you
need to run across the joists then you need to lift floorboards in the
room above so that you can drill holes through the middle of the joists
for the wires (don't put holes near the top or bottom of the joist since
that not only weakens the joist but also makes the cable vulnerable to
damage from nails and screws etc). Hence it is often easier to use a
combination of star and daisy chain wiring to minimise the difficult
cable runs across the joists. e.g.
Original Room/light position
=====================================
| |
| |
|-----------------------------------| --- joists
| |
| |
|-----------------------------------|
| L |
| |
|-----------------------------------|
| |
| |
=====================================
New lighting using a mixture of star and daisy chain wiring:
=====================================
| |
| L1----------------------L2 |
|-----------------------------|-----| --- joists
| | |
| | |
|-----------------------------|-----|
| ------------JB----------+ | - two cables leave JB
| | |
|-----|-----------------------------|
| L3----------------------L4 | - cable daisy chained
| |
=====================================
[4] Most lighting wiring is wired using the "loop in" method. That will
mean that when you look at a ceiling rose you may be surprised how many
wires there are! There will be a cable bringing power (comes from the
previous light in the circuit), and another taking it out again (to the
next light), plus one more to the switch. This gives you nine individual
wires to play with and another two connecting to the light pendant. You
will need to transfer these to a junction box and wire the new lights
such that they are connected where the pendant is currently connected.
--
Cheers,
John.
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