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Earthing new light fitting

Posted by Stan Laird, on Thu 04 Oct 2018 05:28pm

Just bought a new chrome spotlight which has the live and neutral wires connected to a plastic block. The earth wire is connected to the metal fixing plate and not to the centre slot in the block. I have all three existing wires, Live, Neutral and Earth coming out of the wall Do I leave the new earth wire connected to the fixing plate or move it to the centre slot of the plastic block? Do I still fix the existing old earth wire to the plastic block if I leave the new earth attached to the fixing plate? Thanks for your help.

Craig Gardner

Sat 06 Oct 2018 09:29pm

Hi Stan, if you only have 3 cores (live neutral and earth) coming from the ceiling (ie no additional permanent lives) then you could connect both the earth cable from the light and the earth cable coming out the ceiling to the spare terminal you mentioned. Alternatively, you could connect the earth from the light to the earth coming out the ceiling in a separate connector block. As long as the metallic light is connected to the earth in the cable coming from the ceiling it will be fine.

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