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FITTING A METAL SWITCH / SOCKET

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If you would like to swap your old plastic light switches for newer metal ones that it is fairly straight forwards, however certain precautions need following.

  Here is the plastic light switch that is going to be replaced with a metal switch.

Start by switching the light on and then isolate the electricity supply by switching off either the main switch on the consumer unit or by switching off the appropriate MCB or by removing the fuse. The Lamp will now be off!

Carefully remove the two retaining screws and test the wires behind  using a non contact voltage tester to make 100% certain that the electricity is isolated.

 

  Carefully remove the two retaining screws and test the wires behind  using a non contact voltage tester to make 100% certain that the electricity is isolated.

You can see here that there are two brown wires that are wired into the switch and if you look into the metal back box you will see a green and yellow earth wire, that is connected to the metal backbox.

If you have no earth wire present then you cannot fit a metal light switch as it is very dangerous. It was common practice years ago not to include the earth wire in lighting circuits. You can either fit an earth wire from another earthing point, such as a the socket circuit or you must replace the plastic switch.

 

  Here you can see that I have removed the earth wire ( green and yellow) from the backbox and I have inserted a piece of bare wire into the earthing terminal of the backbox.

 

  Now a piece of green and yellow earth sleeving has been slid over the bare earthing wire, this is known as a supplementary earth.

 

  The earth wire from the back box and the earth wire from the lighting circuit are now both tightened into the earthing terminal on the light switch.

Insert the wires into the same terminals that you removed them from on the old switch, which in this case is common and L1.

 

  Then re-fasten the switch to the backbox, ensuring that none of the wires become trapped.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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