in this video we continue on a series of videos looking at two and three gang switches
and again we're gonna be working with a two gang switch remember two gang two switches on the front
and when we turn them over on this style of switches they're always two way
so this being a three gang switch and when we turn it over these are all two way switches and
we see in videos number one and two we started the process of working with a two gang switch
and the easiest place to think about it is maybe when you come in the front door there's a switch
there that turns on the ground floor light and there's a switch there that turns on the first
floor light so that's where we usually see and when we walk upstairs there is another switch
that can also turn off the first floor light and that's what we've got here and that's probably a
one gang two way switch you've got there so that's the arrangement we're going to be looking at today
and we've looked at it in the first two videos as well some of those systems are going to be used
today so let's look at the drawing that we did in video number two we had one light here controlled
by one of the switches so in other words this light here was controlled by this switch and when
i turned it on and off that would say the ground floor and then we had another light in another
area maybe it's the first floor that we can turn it on and off as well as from a different position
now the cabling system i've got here is not quite how possibly you're going to do it if this was
ground floor first floor this is more likely i suggested before this was maybe a kitchen light
this was a dining room light both on the ground floor and this was two way so we're going to
take it and then look at it as if it was that scenario here where we've got a two gang switch at
the front door and another two way switch at the top of the landing operating this switch here so
effectively what we get is this switch when i come in the door ground floor light this one here will
turn on the first floor light when i get upstairs i can turn it on or off from that position as
well so we've got it two way and we're going to think about how that would be wired it's been
sent to my attention that this drawing here is very handy if you're doing the 8202
City and Guilds assessment because in that assessment i've been told there are two lights
there is a two gang switch and one of them is two way and you have to do the wiring diagram so that
was video two in this series and if you haven't checked that one out and you're doing the 8202
it might be worth having a look at that but we're going to look at this now from the point of view
ground floor first floor and i'm sure you'd like them the other way around because that's at the
top that might be the first one it's just easily laid out for me and thinking of that layout if
you need to get any of these drawings there is a link in the description where you can download
this booklet and this booklet we're working through as we go through this series of videos
so ground floor first floor first of all let's think about the fusing of these circuits
if you go to your consumer unit you might call it a fuse box if you go to there you're likely
to have a couple of lighting circuits and maybe they're labelled ground floor first floor or it
might be upstairs and downstairs so if you turned off your ground floor breaker so it's six amps
the downstairs lights go off and the one on the top of the landing would stay on because that
would be wired off the upstairs or first floor lighting circuit so you're likely to have at least
two fuses for your lighting circuits at home and one will be upstairs and want to be downstairs
and that's what we're going to explore in this video how this would actually be wired
also if this is the first floor light fitting you're likely to bring your twin and cpc cable
down to the switch here which is in the same area and one three core from the upstairs switch
to the downstairs position if you look at this drawing here we didn't do that did we we brought
uh if this was the upstairs light we brought the twin and cpc down and this was the upstairs switch
we also brought the three core down so it's unlikely in that scenario that we've got here
ground floor first floor that it would be wired exactly the same as the video number two
because i just said 8202 that video looks as if it's going to be perfect for the wiring diagram
so i'm going to bring my cable in from the consumer unit to the ground floor and i'm going
to bring a cable in from this side here as if it's come from another fuse on the light and circuit
upstairs meaning that these will be on two different breakers i'm then going to bring a cable
down from the first floor light to the switch in its local area and then we'll bring a three core
across to make it two way and that would be the cable that went from the upstairs two way switch
so this two way switch here we'd have a three core down to here which would have to come obviously
through the floors and walls etcetera to get down to there but let's let's unpeel it as we go and
see if we can work out what we're up to so let's start with the consumer unit feeding the ground
floor light because it's in circuit so let's bring that down we're only going to bring one into
the consumer unit so our cpc comes into here as we've seen many times we'll take our neutral next
remember the connections in this consumer unit are not identical to what you'd need in the real world
so i'm going to bring our neutral into there i'll connect in a minute and we'll
bring our line in as well from the top of probably a six amp circuit breaker
so we then we've got to work out where they go we're used to seeing this arrangement
hopefully by now we've got a block of three which are neutral a block of three which is
loop and a block of two which is our switching line conductor so neutral loop switching line
and we're bringing in a permanent line neutral and our cpc so a permanent line connection can
go in any of the three terminals here it's a solid brass block and we're going to bring it
into there so if i bring it into the middle one like so and then we bring our neutral
in and we've got our cpc now we always like to just give it a little strike with with yellow
just to make it look a little bit more a cpc so we've brought in our pvc pvc twin and cpc cables
sometimes called twin and earth cables and the green and yellow is because we have to over sleeve
it and that's brought in the line the neutral and the cpc which we've seen in loads of other videos
so that's from the consumer unit displaying here well imagine the consumer now took a cable up to
the upstairs went round and eventually ended up at the first floor or upstairs lighting i'm going
to bring the cable in from this side as if it's gone round the upstairs and got its way into here
so let's bring this one in so it's on a different fuse let's bring our cpc
in again just strike over the little bit of yellow let's bring our neutral connection in
and we will bring our permanent line connection in as well so again a twin and cpc cable
on the upstairs line circuit it would have come from the consumer unit it got its way upstairs
from a different breaker than the ground floor and brought in our neutral a permanent line connection
and our circuit protective conductor our cpc and our twin and cpc or twin and earth cables so now
these are on different uh fuses which we said earlier and this light here on the first floor
or upstairs lighting whichever you want to say would be quite close to the switch in that area
so that's where we're going to bring down our cable which will bring down our permanent line
our cpc and remember we've used it a lot in other videos that sometimes the blue one when it comes
down to a switch can actually be a switching line conductor and we know we need to identify that
with brown sleeving so that would be down from here and our standard arrangement here for this
one here which we've done a couple of times now on this two gang video series again we'll bring down
our permanent line to common our switching line either L1 or L2 and our cpc down so let's start
by let's do the first floor first so i'm going to bring my cpc down into the switch
and that goes into there i'm going to bring my permanent line
and goes into common remember when we have a two-way switch
we've got common L1 and L2 and we're going to bring our permanent line into common
and then either L1 or L2 but this is going to be tow way so if we did that we'd have to then move
the connections round so let's think carefully when we're doing it for two way we're going to
need to do something in common which normally if you remember my videos is a black conductor of
a three core so i bring my three core in i've got my black conductor which links my commons together
and we had the permanent line and switching line it didn't matter which way around going in L1 and
L2 so if this is going to be a two way switch okay so i'm going to switch it from here and
here i must make sure i make those connections correctly so let's bring our permanent line down
and that's going to go into either L1 or L2 and i'm going to bring down my switching so we'll line
that one down as well and into there and we know that that blue conductor
is not a neutral the neutrals with this side we know that that is a switching line conductor
and we need to be identified with brown sleeving so we identified both ends with brown sleeving
which is here so we identify that so that was that cable coming down because it's going to be two way
okay so let's pull that in then let's do that while we're here let's bring the three core in
we've said in all my presentations that i've been using black as common okay so i've got my black as
my common and i've got grey and brown for my other conductors and again you notice the black and grey
are identified with brown sleeving so this is the three core that would be from the upstairs
or first floor switch that controls the light up there that goes down to where maybe the front door
is we know also the switch will be controlled down there you're gonna take a three core from
the upstairs lighting switch and bring it into the downstairs in this case two gang switch in
order that we have that control hopefully that's something you're familiar with even if you haven't
got it in your own house that you've seen in other people's homes that arrangement so let's bring
that three core in next so we take the black i'm gonna link together my commons in my three core
that's my common in remember we're gonna have to put that brown sleeving on it just put a little
bit of wiggle on there next let's go with the um grey so it doesn't matter which one we do
now i like the grey one um to not be with the brown because the other conductor is brown so
i like to keep my browns together so let's bring our grey one out of here again it doesn't matter
which one it goes into so i'll just pop it into there and then we bring our brown of our three
core which is with our brown of our twin and cpc or twin and earth cables we bring that into there
remember the grey will need brown sleeving on it as well so that's the cable that's gone the
three core cable from upstairs down to the switch downstairs in order you've got two way control
now we've got our standard uh ground floor for land and bottom of the stairs light etc
so that's at the bottom on the first floor ground floor so down there we've got this lighting point
by the front door maybe so we're just going to bring our normal twin and cpc cable down
so we've got a twin cpc cable and we're going to have our permanent line our switching line and our
cpc so let's bring that down so our permanent line connection and bring that down and pop it into
the common just there we're going to bring down our blue which isn't a neutral have our switching
line connection here and we're going to bring it down and either L1 or L2 doesn't matter and then
our cpc is going to come here and across and down to here we might as well put the cpc in our core
at the same time which we've missed out so we've got that three core cpc in as well so we've got
the cpc from our three core coming across and the cpc from our twin and cpc cable coming down
and that's the sort of scenario we're going to have when we've got ground
and first floor lighting points must make sure we put our brown sleeve in on our blue
here because it's not a neutral at both ends and we know from our previous presentations
that we would actually have this would be connecting to a lamp go brown that side blue that
side i'll just show you that again so what we've got there is obviously switching line neutral
neutral switching line and the centre one's our permanent loop so our line comes in and out
so let's think what we've got now then so we've got a cable from the consumer unit in the lighting
circuit downstairs on the ground floor eventually ending up on that ground floor light we've got a
different cable that goes upstairs for a lighting circuit on a different breaker that goes all the
way around and ends up on our first floor lighting point so that's there these are on two different
breakers and our cable system is wired like so that does mean however in this switch here if
i needed to replace it i would need to turn off both the ground and first floor lighting circuit
in order to isolate because if i turned off just the ground floor breaker in the consumer unit
only half the conductors in here would be isolated i would need to turn off both light and circuits
in order that i could isolate it and change this switch if i was working on the switch on the first
floor and i was replacing that two way switch one game two way switch i would only need to isolate
the upstairs lighting circuit see we've got a proof dead etc in order that i could replace it
so that's a piece of advice there isn't it a word of warning that when you're working in
multi-gang switches be very careful to make sure you confirm that all conductors have been isolated
because it can be that you could have more than one circuit in there so the upstairs
and downstairs lighting circuit could appear in both these style of switches
there we have it then so let's have a look at what we've got we've got a permanent line comes into
loop it comes down to common when we operate that switch we turn on the lighting point here because
it's got a switching line here and a neutral here it would operate and control the light if
i wanted to carry the circuit on if i want to go from this one to another maybe the kitchen
dining room etcetera twin and cpc cable comes out you bring out your neutral you bring out your cpc
and you bring out your line conductor that carries the system onto another area
and that's what we end up having in circuit and we're used to unscrewing ceiling rows and pendants
and seeing that all the connections have been made if you look here they are all made so we've
got a switching line three loops two neutrals and the neutral to the lamp that would be full
of those connections and that's what you're used to when you're unscrewing those
in a domestic dwelling and again in here it would go off and continue on the system
the thing to bear in mind here as i said before was the number of fuses that need to be isolated
before replacing the switch there is a way around it and there's different methods and i'm sure
people have their own way of doing it but in the next video in this series we'll go on and see if
we can't have this switch downstairs actually on the ground floor fuse as well as feeding upstairs
to the upstairs lighting point but make it as simple to do that as possible because at the
minute we have a cable that comes from the upstairs switch to the downstairs switch so
that's one cable makes that journey so let's see if we can stick with that rule in the next video
where we have still one cable coming from the downstairs two gang switch to the upstairs switch
but will mean that we can make both of these on the ground floor fuse so that's where we're going
to step to next time out i understand these videos are getting a little bit more complicated as we go
and again i recommend you watch all the videos in the series make sure you pause
and consider what we're talking about at each stage and again you'll have an
option of drawing these out yourselves if you download them from the link in the description