I’m at the stage in the plasterboarding where I need to move the light switch at the top of the stairs. And, when I peeled off the old insulation that I put on the end wall as a temporary measure, I had a look at the wiring that I had done back in October 2009.
It’s much better than the first load of wiring that I did, but even so, it’s a shameful mess with no kind of colour co-ordination at all and I’ve no idea which wires go where.
I was half-expecting something like this and so not only do I have proper red and black wire for the 12-volt circuits and blue and brown for the 230-volt circuits, I also have some orange wire and some violet wire for the shunt wires between the L1 and L2 terminals on 2-way light switches. So after about an hour’s worth of staring at it to try to make sense of the wiring that I did back in 2009, I simply ripped the light circuits out and started again.
The 230-volt light circuit hasn’t been replaced. These 12-volt LED lights do all that I have asked them to do, and plenty more besides. But now in the attic and in the stairwell down to the first floor I have proper wiring, properly colour-coded, properly connected together (these little spring-clip connectors are magnificent – they beat everything else that I have ever used), properly routed and properly sheathed.
And to my great surprise, it all worked straight away with no trouble-shooting required. Such are the benefits of colour-coded wiring.
I was hoping to finish down to the bottom of the stairwell before I knocked off but that wasn’t possible. There was still 40 minutes before knocking off and there was still plenty oflight, but not enough for working on electricity in confined space in the gathering gloom.
I’ll finish that tomorrow morning so if you don’t hear from me tomorrow I’ll be a shrivelled black blob hanging from the ceiling in the stairwell.
