porch light fitting 4 wires to connect?

Question

there are 4 wires coming out of the wall.1 is earth how do i connect the others ?.

Answer 1

first figure out the colors of the wires.

green = ground
black or red = hot
white = neutral

on the fixture or "light" the place for the hot wire will be a brass color. on the neutral it will be silver. put the black or red wire on the brass screw and the white one on the silver screw. you may have the wires crossed. make sure the switch and the breaker are off before you go messing around with the wires, or you could be in for some pain.

Answer 2

You need to be careful. You haven't even described what all of the colors of the wires are. You also need to find out where the different wires run to. There are a number of different possible reasons. One wire could be for a dimmer, another wire could be feeding off the light to send power to other areas. It's hard to say. If there was a light fixture there before, copy how the wires were connected on it. The positive wire should go to the bronze screws and the negative wire should go to the silver screws. The ground normally goes to a green screw.

If you have black and white wires, the black wire is normally positive and the white is normally negative. Don't ever connect the positive and negative wires directly together. Also be careful because black isn't always positive. In combination with red it can be the negative wire with the red being the positive wire. Although sometimes black and red are used together and both are positive with the red denoting a certain line or switch.

Answer 3

I agree with Jayktee96 about the people from the US NOT answering these questions. Right, re connecting the wires. Yet again I cannot believe what some people will attempt when they haven't the knowledge or experience. No wonder the NHS is in a mess. Just phone an electrician!

Answer 4

Yes you could ,and that was the way it was done until the rules changed , you should now fit a fan with an over run on a timer and this should have a three pole isolator to switch off all power in case of maintenance , if your property is 10 or more years old wiring the fan in parallel with the light fixture would have being the norm

Answer 5

Hard to answer from a distance as there are so many ways to wire a light circuit. If you have 2 black and one red it's probable that the red is live from the switch and the 2 blacks are the neutral loop. But that may not be the case. I think you need on the spot help.

Answer 6

Ask some one to have a look at it it, is too complicated to do by description, other wise use a voltmeter or a test lamp and find which wires will light the lamp without losing the connection to the rest of the circuit. at a guess the extra wire is a feed to the next lighting fitting.

Answer 7

Without appearing to be cheeky! I wish that all the contributors from the US would not give advice to what are mainly UK questions, all this talk about black and white wiring, hot wires, ground wires, 10 and 12 gauge wiring, wire nuts,120 volts, codes and so on is making things even more confusing for the uk DIY'ers who mostly haven't got much idea in the first place. Our electrical system, wiring practice and terminology differs greatly from the US, why don't they understand that?

Answer 8

there is probably 2 black wires, and 2 white wires. The 2 black wires go to the black on the light fixture, they are your hot conductors. the other 2 white ones are neutral wires, or grounded conductors. connect those to the white on the fixture. there is probably 4 cause there is another light tied in somewhere. Let me know if this isn't how it looks.

Answer 9

Go to some handyman sites and read uo on basic wiring. If you are still not confident in your abilities then play it safe and seek help.
Good luck

Answer 10

With a screwdriver and wire cutters.