Downlights plug base

[miraperry]

Question - I was talking to a customer in bunnings lighting yesterday and he told me that Arlec multi power and JOBLOT led downlights don't need an electrician to install.  Is that correct?  I currently have 1 normal light hanging from the ceiling and the electrician told me I'm missing an earth wire in it.  Can these downlights be installed with what i have?

[MitchellMc]

Hi @miraperry,

What that customer was likely referring to are downlights that come with a 240 V plug and a driver already attached. Those can be plugged into a power point in the ceiling, but only if a suitable outlet has already been legally installed there. Plugging a light into an existing ceiling socket is allowed, but anything that involves connecting wires, adding cables, or modifying the electrical system must be done by a licensed electrician.

In your case, you currently have a single hardwired light point and you have already been told by an electrician that there is no earth wire present. That is a big indicator that you do not have ceiling outlets installed and that the wiring is older or incomplete by current standards. Because of that, you cannot legally or safely install plug-in downlights yourself. An earth would need to be run to that location, and if you wanted plug-in downlights, an electrician would also need to install the ceiling power outlets for them to plug into.

So the options for you are either to have an electrician run an earth and hardwire new downlights, or have an electrician run an earth and install ceiling sockets, which then allows you to use plug-in style downlights. As it stands right now, there is no DIY-compliant solution for installing downlights with the wiring you have.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

[miraperry]

Thanks Michell, I love this group, absolutely amazing information.  I'm learning a lot.  We had the entire powerboard upgraded last year and electrician told us that the internal electrical had defiantly been upgraded in the last 10 years, he knew this because of the type of wiring used, but for some reason no earth is on this particular light. Only in 1 room. We wont do any electrical ourselves. we have an electrician, I just wanted to understand what the bunnings customer was telling me.