A ceiling rose is a great way to cover your light cables and keep your fitting looking neat and tidy, while also adding a decorative element to your space, tying the décor together.
To successfully wire ceiling rose light fittings, you need to be able to isolate the power supply, know where all the wires should go when dismantling the existing fitting, and identify the switched live wire.
Follow our simple steps to help you ensure you do the job safely.
1. Find your fitting
Before you start dismantling any of your lighting to change your light fixtures, the first step in the process is to find the right replacement for your space. For example, a sleek, rose gold pendant light might be the perfect addition to your home. Or maybe a decorative plaster ceiling rose is more your style?
Regardless of what you’re looking for, before you get going with the DIY electrical work, a bit of research on ceiling rose light ideas is always the best place to start.
2. Are you up to the task?
Once you have found the perfect fitting for your home, instead of diving straight into any electrical tasks yourself, it is important to pause and ask yourself the question – do I know what I’m doing?
If the answer is no or not completely, get a trained electrician to complete the job – electricity can kill so it’s essential it’s performed correctly! If the answer is yes, proceed to step two.
Important Notice: For your own safety please ensure that all electrical products are installed with the local building regulations. If you are in doubt or required by law, inform someone who is registered with an electrical self-certification scheme.
3. Turn off the power and isolate the electricity
Whether you’re changing your ceiling rose light completely, or just replacing the light fitting on an existing ceiling rose, you’ll be working on exposed wiring, so turning off and isolating the power supply is absolutely imperative.
When wiring your ceiling rose, check there aren’t any home appliances in use, and make sure nobody will be switching the power back on without you knowing.
Once these checks are complete, turn off all the switches on your consumer unit or fuse box. This is where electrical power feeds supply to subsidiary circuits.
Then use a voltage detector to double-check that the electricity is isolated. The devices will usually illuminate (e.g. flash red and/or beep) if the circuit is still live.
4. Remove the existing light bulb and ceiling rose light fitting
Remove both the existing light bulb and ceiling rose light fitting – fear not when the wires are left exposed from your ceiling!
The following steps will tell you how you can successfully begin to fit a ceiling rose.
5. Set your domestic test metre correctly
You’ll need a domestic test metre to establish which of the exposed wires is the switched live wire – the wire that ensures your light turns both on and off via a switch.
Before testing your wires, you need to make sure your domestic test metre is set to ohms and the bleep test mode. When successfully finding the switched live wire with the red and black crocodile clips (or probes) attached, the test metre will bleep.
6. Find the switched live wire
You then need to find the switched live wire. Ceiling rose wiring involves three sets of red (or brown) and black (or blue) wires, housed inside three cables, that’ll be exposed from your ceiling.
Make sure the domestic test metre is set to bleep and attach the red and black crocodile clips (or probes) to each set of red (or brown) and black (or blue) wires. Then flick the light switch each time to determine whether there is a bleep, which will mean you have successfully found the switched live wire.
7. Mark the switched live wire
At this point, you need to mark the switched live wire (the black or blue wire in the set) so you can screw it into the correct terminal block on your ceiling rose light fitting. Either wrap insulation tape or fit some sleeving around the wire to clearly identify it.
8. Screw all wires into the correct terminal blocks
Next, screw all wires into the correct terminal blocks with a screwdriver.
This involves screwing the two neutral wires (black or blue wires) into the neutral block (left block), the three live wires (red or brown wires) into the live block (central block) and the switched live wire (marked black or blue wire) into the switch block (right block).
There should be two remaining screw compartments that will house the two wires belonging to your lamp holder.
9. Fit your lamp holder and light bulb
From here, you’ll first need to fit your new lamp holder, screwing the neutral wire into the last remaining neutral screw compartment, and the live wire into the last remaining live screw compartment. Next, you can fit your light bulb.
10. Turn the power on
Turn the electrical power supply back on to complete the process – you’ve successfully wired your ceiling rose light fitting!
Conclusion
Now you know how to go about installing or replacing a flush ceiling light with ease, check out our full range of ceiling light fittings to tick off step one. And make sure you keep referring back to this step-by-step guide to help you through the wiring process.