installing attic light

whoppoe

hello all.

I am looking to put a light in the attic but dont know where to source the power from. There are no junction boxes. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

aujopimur

The easiest way is to connect to an existing light with a switch controlling the one in the attic.
Modern houses are wired with a loop live feed to each light, in this situation you can take the live & neutral from the centre light, and switch in the attic.

whoppoe

thanks for the reply. had a look at the centre lights in the rooms below the attic and there is no live going to them. they just go live when they are turned on. the live feed seems to be fed to the switches on the wall. is this right?

aujopimur

If you can get to a switch that will do, taking the live from one of the existing lights just means you will need to have that light switched on in order to use the attic light, if it's only for occasional use this would be fine.

whoppoe

i can access the light switch wire in the attic. can i break this with a junction box and feed the attic light from this? would this be recommended?

DublinDilbert

Yep if you can locate a permanent live going to a switch you can use that. Probably best not to use a junction box, if it can be avoided.

My preferred way of doing this is to find the wires going to a switch from above. Drop down a wire, connect it to the permanent live inside the switch. The place a switch on this wire in the attic.

whoppoe

thanks. I ended up using the live wire supplying the switch. I couldnt fish a wire down so i broke the live wire and just used a junction box. I then had to use an earth and neutral supply from a ceiling pendant beside it and connected that to the junction box with a bit of twin and earth. i connected in the switch (with twin and earth) to break the live going to the new pendant in the attic.