Electrical advice please

[qwerty]

There is a pir light on the back wall of my house, facing the garden. It's developed a fault whereby it switches on and doesn't turn off like it should. It's wired directly into the mains and can't be switched off without cutting the power to all of the lights on the ground floor.

I've had the bright idea of opening the case and removing the bulb, but my question is, will power going to the light with no bulb in it trip the safety feature on the meter, thereby cutting power to the whole house.

I know it's simple to reset the meter but don't want to be doing several times a night.

TIA.

[Deano!]

Firstly, the fault might be caused by its sensitivity being too high. Have a look around its case and see if you can find some adjustments. They might have little knobs with slots for screwdriver adjustment. Usually they provide sensitivity and length of 'on' time adjustments.

It seems odd that it has no switch of its own, but if thats the case you can remove the bulb as you suggest without upsetting the safety trip switch in your meter board. They work on detecting a difference between the current entering the circuits through your house and the current returning. If there is a difference, it means its going somewhere else, like through you to ground, and so it cuts off the power.

Removing the bulb would be the same effect as if the bulb were blown and 'open circuit'.

Be careful and I hope you get it working one day.

[qwerty]

Thanks for replying . I've played around with settings on the light and it doesn't make any difference, it just goes on and stays on. That's something I should of mentioned in the first post. I'll remove the bulb for now as a temporary measure and when ready get an electrician to fit a new light with a switch.

Good advice Deano! !happy! Thanks alot. !thumbsup!

[Kellyh]

Stop being tight and call a sparky....lol

[qwerty]

Will do Kellyh thanks. By the way my car needs a wash, are you free some time next week !wink!

[nikonman]

Have you tried turning the power off to the light for about a couple of minutes . Then switch the light back on . It could be that the timing circuit inside the light has a a memory block and requires a reset.

[qwerty]

Yes tried that, made no difference. The bulb has now been removed and I'm in the process of obtaining quotes.

[nsaint2]

Change the pir sounds like the latching relay is stuck when energised.

[Kellyh]

Qwerty, glad you took the advice of a woman, they are always right!!
As for the carwash, what do you drive???lol

[qwerty]

A picture of my car for Kellyh. Not as nice as the blue BMW from your purestorm.com profile, but I like it.

[img]http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3190 ... 000xg9.jpg[/img]