House Rejuvenation, a Small Tidbit

My ability to add articles here and more importantly to continue to set out the history of Parlington Hall on my main Parlington site has taken something of a back seat over the last few months as I have been seriously modifying rooms, and rejuvenating the rather tired look of the property we bought last year. So if you have visited and found nothing new, my apologies… always assuming my musings here and my history research on the other are worth spending some time on!

So a small Tidbit is the flavour of this post and it has to do with installing a light fitting, in my new office. You may have encountered the problem I am about to set out, or you may have paid someone else to sort it out, whatever. Lights which are installed in the ceiling have one of two wiring types, usually; firstly there is the behind the scenes, in the floor/ceiling void junction box from which the live-neutral and sometimes earth protrude to be attached to the light fitting! If you find this then adding a new fitment is pretty easy. Of course most of the business end of the circuit is contained in the junction box, which will obviously include a live feed to the switch or switches, but unless the house is in need of re-wiring you can simply ignore what has been installed in the ceiling void.

Moving on to the second type, which I believe to be pretty common, and I always seem to come up against these beasts, is the loop in ceiling rose! Here all the wiring is terminated inside the plastic ceiling fitment, Live (loop-in Loop-out), neutral ditto, earth ditto, live to switch/switches, live back from switch, and neutral to light fitting! This seems a simple way of handling the circuitry, alas rarely do modern light fittings, probably because the bulk are imported, seem to recognise this and simply offer a plastic terminal block, for live, neutral and usually an earth. I have attempted on occasion to remedy the problem by using a larger terminal block to accommodate all the wires, but the odds of the light fitting housing/rose facilitating this is virtually nil! Plus, it strikes me as a poor solution to the problem, given the potential risk with electrical fittings.

Getting to the point of this message, I discovered a fairly new British designed and made invention, the Wagobox Light, by Connexbox. Here an inventive electrician has recognised the frustrations of making electrical connections and has developed this simple enclosure which is designed to utilise within it the wiring, and the yet more devilishly cunning German developed Wago connectors; put the two together and… Wham Bang than you Mam, job done! Slide the Wagobox into the ceiling void, all nice and secure, you may have to cut a small hole to ease the box through, but it really is a simple solution to a messy problem. I wholeheartedly recommend using them.

Bye the way the legal position on working with electrical circuits has in recent years been savaged by the Bureaucrats, so do take care to keep within the law, should you seek to replace a light fitting. The details I have described here come within part P of the Building Regulations, replacing a light fitting does not require notification. To my mind, as with much legislation, the motives are quite laudable but as ever the effect is to increase the cost and do little for safety. The fact that you are permitted to do what I have described without notifying Building Control, yet you are not allowed to install a new external water resistant socket in a shed, says a lot about our “elf an safety” society.