Best way to get a light in under-stairs cupboard?

[Mark]

I recently moved into a house that has a decent sized understairs
cupboard. It has no power (although it does have a length of T&E
powering the alarm system, there is about 5 feet of cable on show which
appears from the floor above) and I would like to put a light in there.

Is it possible to DIY it? I have a spare 3m length of LED lights.
Perhaps I could put a socket in the line before the alarm. I can't tell
where the power for the alarm comes from, the CU does not have a
designated line.

Any thoughts?

Thanks
Mark.

[Bill Wright]

Turn each circuit off to identify the one feeding the alarm. The alarm
panel will shout if it loses mains power, or will show a warning light.
RTFM for details. When the alarm does this check everything else in the
house, then write a proper label and stick it on the consumer unit.
Assuming it turns up to be a power (not lights) circuit and once you are
totally sure that the cable does indeed feed the (now mains-less) alarm,
you could fit a (switched double?) 13A socket by cutting into the T & E.
Then plug in a light of some sort. You should be able to pull enough
slack out to make the fitting of the socket possible.

Bill

[Simon Cee]

On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:18:34 -0000, Mark <mark,dam...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:

>I recently moved into a house that has a decent sized understairs
>cupboard. It has no power (although it does have a length of T&E
>powering the alarm system, there is about 5 feet of cable on show which
>appears from the floor above) and I would like to put a light in there.

I've used these battery powered PIR LEDs for similar. Bright light,
batteries last 6 months. Probably similar availsble more nearby.

http://www.chinavasion.com/hmzr/

[Java Jive]

I DIYed a light under the stairs in my last house. There was a
circuit for the alarm in there as well, but I wanted to do it properly
by taking it from a lighting circuit. Logically, it should have been
the downstairs I took it from, but I could only really get access to
that by ripping up flooring upstairs, and it was that ghastly
chipboard stuff with interlocking tongue and groove, and was carpetted
to boot.

So in the end, I took it from the upstairs circuit, easily accessible
in the attic, and fed it down through the airing cupboard. About 20
mins fishing and cursing to get it from there diagonally down and
across into the cupboard, but apart from that, it was pretty
straightforward.

On Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:18:34 -0000, Mark <mark,dam...@ntlworld.com>
wrote:
>

> I recently moved into a house that has a decent sized understairs
> cupboard. It has no power (although it does have a length of T&E
> powering the alarm system, there is about 5 feet of cable on show which
> appears from the floor above) and I would like to put a light in there.

--
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[Nightjar]

Fit glass stairs.

Colin Bignell

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <MPG.2bbbe8ab...@news.virginmedia.com>,

If there is no FCU feeding the alarm, as their must be if a spur from a
ring, it *should* be off a lighting circuit, if not on a dedicated
radial. But switch off your MCBs one by one 'till you find out which one
is the alarm circuit. Adding a light to that will be fine.

--
*Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[John Rumm]

On 26/03/2013 19:59, Java Jive wrote:
> I DIYed a light under the stairs in my last house. There was a
> circuit for the alarm in there as well, but I wanted to do it properly
> by taking it from a lighting circuit. Logically, it should have been
> the downstairs I took it from, but I could only really get access to
> that by ripping up flooring upstairs, and it was that ghastly
> chipboard stuff with interlocking tongue and groove, and was carpetted
> to boot.

I had a recent issue similar to that where I wanted to take a feed from
an existing circuit for an emergency light. I also wanted to fix a bodge
of the previous owner which had left the light fitting downstairs
unearthed. The complication was the terminations were all made in a
junction in the ceiling void. The downstairs had a fancy plaster rose
mounted round where the exit hole was, so hacking lumps out of that for
access was not on. Upstairs was the aforementioned chipboard stuff.

In the end I found a relatively easy way, which was to fist get a long
(400mm) 6mm drill bit, and drill up from the rose, through the floor
above (I knew it would come out in a drying room above - but was not
sure where exactly). The small bit meant that it would not make a mess
of the carpet. One I was through I took the drill off the bit and left
it there, and went upstairs to find the other end of it.

Then I folded back that corner of carpet and cut an access hole with a
board access saw like the one shown here:

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php?title=Electrical_Installation#Lifting_floors

That then let me redo all the connections with wago terminals in boxes
and add my new feed. It also allowed access for cable rods to get the
new wire the 3m along the ceiling void to the new light position.



--
Cheers,

John.

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