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Help with light Fittings



CheeseRolls

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jan 27, 2009
5,922
Shoreham Beach
I am usually okay to swap out light fittings myself, especially since I had the house rewired a couple of years back and have some confidence in the cabling, however I have a couple of ackward fittings in my kitchen, ackward because they are over an island and because they have rather delicate glass shades, which break too easily.

Each fitting consists of three lights in a row and on one of the fittings a couple of long life bulbs went within weeks of each other. On the first one a simple bulb change fixed it, but the second was not playing ball. So I found a local builder and asked him if he could take this on, along with a range of other smallish but ackward jobs. So last week he came around, took down the fitting, identified a loose connection fixed it and put the fitting back up. We had agreed 50 quid for the job, (which also involved another small issue with a flickering light and as he was about to fly off to Nice we settled on 50 Euros in cash.

Six days later I am cooking some pasta and whoosh the fitting just drops out of the ceiling. Fortunatly my man had done a good job tightening things up and the flex stopped the whole lot smashing. Given that he is not back in the country for another week, I have decided to fill the ceiling holes with polyfilla and plan to try and re-attach the fitting to the ceiling tomorrow. Does this sound like a sensible plan and has Farage cursed me for daring to pay the man in Euros ?

Your best advise would be appreciated, especially if you have half a clue what you are talking about.
 


happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,935
Eastbourne
I had a light fitting that was fixed into a plasterboard ceiling but above the fitting most of the plasterboard had crumbled away leaving a hole about 2 inches across with the cable through it but nothing to get a fixing in to secure the light. I got a bit of 1.5 inch batten about 18 inches long, slid it into the hole then back so it had 8 inches either side of the hole and fixed into that.
Can you do something similar ?
 


CheeseRolls

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jan 27, 2009
5,922
Shoreham Beach
I had a light fitting that was fixed into a plasterboard ceiling but above the fitting most of the plasterboard had crumbled away leaving a hole about 2 inches across with the cable through it but nothing to get a fixing in to secure the light. I got a bit of 1.5 inch batten about 18 inches long, slid it into the hole then back so it had 8 inches either side of the hole and fixed into that.
Can you do something similar ?

Thanks HP - I had a crawl around to confirm what I suspected, which is that this one is pretty much inaccessible from above. For the identical set at the other end of the island, this would likely have worked.
 


happypig

Staring at the rude boys
May 23, 2009
7,935
Eastbourne
Thanks HP - I had a crawl around to confirm what I suspected, which is that this one is pretty much inaccessible from above. For the identical set at the other end of the island, this would likely have worked.

Can you enlarge the hole the cable comes through without it showing ? You only need about a 1" hole to feed a bit of wood into.
 


I am usually okay to swap out light fittings myself, especially since I had the house rewired a couple of years back and have some confidence in the cabling, however I have a couple of ackward fittings in my kitchen, ackward because they are over an island and because they have rather delicate glass shades, which break too easily.

Each fitting consists of three lights in a row and on one of the fittings a couple of long life bulbs went within weeks of each other. On the first one a simple bulb change fixed it, but the second was not playing ball. So I found a local builder and asked him if he could take this on, along with a range of other smallish but ackward jobs. So last week he came around, took down the fitting, identified a loose connection fixed it and put the fitting back up. We had agreed 50 quid for the job, (which also involved another small issue with a flickering light and as he was about to fly off to Nice we settled on 50 Euros in cash.

Six days later I am cooking some pasta and whoosh the fitting just drops out of the ceiling. Fortunatly my man had done a good job tightening things up and the flex stopped the whole lot smashing. Given that he is not back in the country for another week, I have decided to fill the ceiling holes with polyfilla and plan to try and re-attach the fitting to the ceiling tomorrow. Does this sound like a sensible plan and has Farage cursed me for daring to pay the man in Euros ?

Your best advise would be appreciated, especially if you have half a clue what you are talking about.

Have you tried turning them off ,then back on again?
 




knocky1

Well-known member
Jan 20, 2010
12,946
Google plasterboard fixings. You may get one bigger to fit into the enlarged holes. Otherwise use them in a new position, if that is ok for the position of the lights.
 


CheeseRolls

Well-known member
NSC Patreon
Jan 27, 2009
5,922
Shoreham Beach
So the fitting had two screw holes around 30cm apart, which ruled out the wood insertion trick, which otherwise would have been handy. I had plasterboard fixings and have screwed these into the filled ceiling. Lights are back up (for now) and have passed the turning off and turning on again test.

Thanks
 



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