Replacing Ceiling Light

[OhGranny]

Hi I'm puzzled by this.
I am replacing a spotlight fitting with a standard ceiling pendant.
The connections on the old light fitting are like this.

The wires from the ceiling are like this.
The Red wire was connected to the wire marked live, the uninsulated wire to the neutral and the third blue wire shown at the bottom was connected to the two wires attached together in the choc block.

How should I wire this to the new ceiling rose?

I have never seen a light fitting with 3 wires!

Thanks
Granny

 

[SUNRAY]

The 'official way'

I show the earth wire in bright green as it should be sleeved with green or green/yellow striped.
In your situation probably be easier to do this as the earth is not likely to be used and will reach better without stripping it back further

 

[OhGranny]

Hi Sunray thanks a lot.
Just to be sure, do you mean the uninsulated wire is the Earth? 'cos that was connected to the neutral terminal on the light fitting, so it was wired up incorrectly?
The live red wire from the ceiling hole goes to the brown positive block, the two connected together in the chock block go in the blue neutral block?
And the ininsulated wire goes in the common?
Apologies for my being thick.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Just to be sure, do you mean the uninsulated wire is the Earth? 'cos that was connected to the neutral terminal on the light fitting, so it was wired up incorrectly?

Yes, the bare wire, SHOULD be the earth. The puzzle is, why it might have been used instead/in place of the neutral.....

If that your final comment above, was correct, then either someone made a mistake, or there is a more serious issue needing investigation. Your questions suggest you would not be able to carry out that investigation.

You might, as a way to avoid that, first try connecting the ceiling rose as suggested by Sunray, and if it works, it should be fine, with no need for further investigation.

 

[SUNRAY]

Yes, the bare wire, SHOULD be the earth. The puzzle is, why it might have been used instead/in place of the neutral.....

I know exactly why; one of our famous conflicting threads on here where someone had followed incorrect advice to ignore the loop-in single block and use the unterminated single red and earth (with some old fashioned black cloth tape), except the single was 2 neutrals. Looking at how shiny that earth is, it could so easily have been a previous occupier of this property.
Eventually great swathes of that thread was removed.

If that your final comment above, was correct, then either someone made a mistake, or there is a more serious issue needing investigation. Your questions suggest you would not be able to carry out that investigation.

You might, as a way to avoid that, first try connecting the ceiling rose as suggested by Sunray, and if it works, it should be fine, with no need for further investigation.

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

I know exactly why; one of our famous conflicting threads on here where someone had followed incorrect advice to ignore the loop-in single block and use the unterminated single red and earth (with some old fashioned black cloth tape), except the single was 2 neutrals. Looking at how shiny that earth is, it could so easily have been a previous occupier of this property.
Eventually great swathes of that thread was removed.

I'm not sure, what you were trying to say there..?

 

[SUNRAY]

I'm not sure, what you were trying to say there..?

Very often we advise to ignore the live loop connector (typically 3 reds into a choc bloc) and just use the remaining wires (typically black SL, black neutral, [3]earths). This is not the arrangement in this particular situation.

A thread on this forum had identical ceiling light wiring to OP: Single red & earth not terminated into anything (but the earth was wrapped with cloth insulation tape), 2 single neutrals terminated in a single block.
One of the advisors contradicted the others by advising to ignore the 'loop-in/out' connector and just use the 2 unterminated wires into the light fitting.
That OP saw it as the easiest solution and did just that. I don't recall if that worked OK or resulted in RCD tripping but I do recall much of the thread being deleted when it got messy.

The similarity between that thread and this is only marred by the double connector block and lack of cloth insulation tape.

So ignoring all of this deviation, my advice is to follow whichever sketch in post #2 is easiest to execute.

I confirm the bare wire should be the earth wire, it should be insulated with sleeving, it should not have anything connected to it other than one of the connector in the sketches.

 

[OhGranny]

Thanks everyone. It's sorted now. Don't know how it was wired like that but I followed the diagram, wife is delighted the old manky spotlights are gone!
Diynot to the rescue once again.

 

[SUNRAY]

Thanks everyone. It's sorted now. Don't know how it was wired like that but I followed the diagram, wife is delighted the old manky spotlights are gone!
Diynot to the rescue once again.

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Thanks everyone. It's sorted now. Don't know how it was wired like that but I followed the diagram, wife is delighted the old manky spotlights are gone!
Diynot to the rescue once again.

If it worked, as you suggested it was originally wired - that suggests you don't have any RCBO/RCD's fitted.