Ceiling Light Wiring and Polarity Labelling Confusion! Ask questions and find answers to many subjects relating to electrics and electrical work

[mrh1818]

Hi all,

First post here and looking for some help with a light fitting I bought at John Lewis today that has confusing wire colours and polarity labelling on it!

Three wires coming out of ceiling...(red for live, black for neutral and green and yellow for earth.

However, when I look at the wiring junction box attached to the light fitting, it has a brown wire labelled as neutral and a blue wire labelled as live and the earth green and yellow cable.

All other lights I’ve seen have always signalled the brown cable as live and the blue cable as neutral....and I have always linked up the red and brown live cables and the black and blue neutral cables when wiring in ceiling lights before.

So...is the labelling inside the light fitting just wrong (live and neutral the wrong way around) and if I trusted the labelling despite it being counter intuitive to me, what would happen if live and neutral cable were wired incorrectly at the light fitting? How could I test if the wiring is in fact correct or not with a multi meter?

Many thanks in advance for how to get piece of mind here!!

R.

[Mr White]

Perhaps they put the labels on in the dark.

What you have said is correct, brown is Live blue is neutral.

99% of light fittings it does not matter which way round the supply is, because you can take the lamp out, rotate it 180 degrees and put it back in again, which in effect is the same as swapping live and neutral around.