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I was hoping someone with wiring expertise might be able to help me - Google has failed me 😥
I have just moved house, and in all of the bedrooms, as well as a conventional single wall switch for the ceiling light, there is also a pull cord (for the same ceiling light) which is located where you would put the bed (the estate agent called it a lazy switch?).
I would like to remove the pull cord, and just have the single wall switch. But to do this, can I just remove the ceiling rose, put electrical tape on the ends of the wires and shove it up into the attic and then fill up the hole in the ceiling? Or do I need to do something more substantial? (obviously switching off the electrics before I do all of that!).
Any help would be much appreciated! 😀
Cheers. Hollie.
"put electrical tape on the ends of the wires and shove it up into the attic "
Certainly not .
stick them in a junction box(as they will need to be joined to create continuity) or similar before sticking them in the attic. and plastering up.
I would strongly recommend you do not attempt any changes yourself, it is impossible to tell how the circuits have been arranged without a proper investigation, any changes you make apart fom disabling the lighting may render the circuits unsafe !
Is a very simple task for a decent spark and without trying to sound too cautious you cannot really just chance it.
Good luck !
Kinda. You should definitely do something a little better than electrical tape, chocolate block as a minimum but better a proper junction box. You'll also need to preserve the connections as its presently a two way switch, undoing everything will stop the wall switch working too!
You could but I would sleep with a fire extinguisher nearby!
The easiest way would be to remove the pulls, making a note of where the wires go, then pulling the cable up into loft and reconnecting them, leaving the pulls lying in the loft.
It depends how it's wired, but you will have to connect some of the wires before hiding them.
If you're very lucky there'll be 2 wires from the light to the switch at the door and three from there to the ceiling switch, you can just disconnect the three at the door switch in this case. It isn't going to be like this.
Depending how old it is (and I'm guessing pretty old, ceiling switches in bedrooms haven't been fashionable for a while) there may be three wires at the ceiling switch and three at the door switch. You need to connect two at the ceiling *and make the third safe*. There are three ways of doing this (AB+C, AC+B, BC+A) and it will work in two of them. Do you feel lucky?
The third (hard) option is five wires at the ceiling and three at the door. They'll be in the ceiling switch as two pairs and a single, reconnect them like this and then connect the single to one of the pairs.
Usual caveats about not messing with things you don't understand apply, particularly things that bite hard. Sparkies are not expensive.
Thanks everyone, that's very useful. Looks like the safest option in the long run is to get a sparky in...don't want to end up casting the house back to the dark ages!