Electrics help – two live wires, one neutral

I’m fitting a wall light but when I’ve come to put the fitting on I find there are two live and one neutral wire. My light fitting just has one live and one neutral socket. What do I do?

How was it wired to start with?

It’s had a full rewire. We replaced old vulcanised rubber things but didn’t get the lamps in time for the second fix.

Are you sure they are live or are cables just housed in coloured cables that make you assume so?

That’s the ‘live’. You can see an un coated wire and brown live. The other is clearly neutral

Why is it clearly neutral?

It’s not in the photo. Blue sheath though.

Take your point about not knowing but I was assured by the spark that the wires are correctly coloured. It’s just this other random one I don’t know

Uncoated one is earth surely? Maybe you need a leccy…

And isn’t there an Earth?

I feel nervous already.

Looks a bit odd. That’s a single and earth . Has the other cable got 3 cores in it , brown,blue and unsheathed earth? Bear in mind you may have a permenent live and a switched live there.

I’ll dial 99, and then when the streetlights go out, press the other 9.

The other cable. There are two coming out of the wall. The blue one, then this brown + other.

http://www.buildmyowncabin.com/electrical/wiring-light-switch.html

There should be one cable coming out of the wall

It should contain a Brown core (Live) a Blue core with a Brown tube (switched live) and a bare earth that requires some yellow/green sleeve.

The only exception is where the fitting is looped (in a ceiling rose)

Get someone in

EDIT – seen your updated photo – that is not right at all – get a proper sparky in

So you re wondering what the bare copper wire is? That’s the earth you need to put some green and yellow sleeving on it and attach it it th earth terminal of your light. Which maybe a small metal lug on the bracket or the light. If your light has a sticker on it with 2 squares , one inside the other , it is double insulated and does not require an earth to be fitted.

My guess is it’s been wired like below and you’ve either only got one light or are at the end of line i.e. the furthest from the mcb. Stops you having too many cables at the back of a small wall light.

The bare copper is the earth wire

#Pray4Pook

This is why I take a photo before unscrewing wires.

If there’s any doubt get in the Sparkie, they just changed the law to stop all the DIY leccy deaths didn’t they? It’s not worth it.

Pook, later.

Not dead yet

And then there was light! Did you connect the earth? It’s pretty important.

Yeah into the earth socket. Just being a bit dense I guess.

I’ll dial 99

I’ll dial 0118 999 881 999 119 725

Could be worse, out house is wired up with red/black wires, however it was built in the 50’s when apparently there was a shortage of wires, so red isn’t always live and black isn’t always neutral!

Made re-fitting the hallway lights interesting as it was 2 lights and 2 switches. Followed the logic that if I got it wrong then either the consumer board would trip or nothing would work. Took 4 attempts.

I’ll dial 0118 999 881 999 119 725

😀

Wire colours mean nothing now, never mind the ’50s.

Never assume a coloured wire corresponds to current convention – just check or (as I’d do) get someone in that knows what they are doing.