Middle of a Re-wire / Quick Question about Smart Switches

[limber leaf]

Hello,

Currently in day 1 of a rewire and unfortunately I couldn't be at the property when the electrician was there.

He's done the whole 1st floor today.

I informed them I was having Smart Switches ZMB5 and require neutrals for all lighting.

They've putting lighting in but theyve put the whole upstairs on 1 circuit..

Is this an issue when a Zigbee light faults and requires rebooting? I'm going to have to kill power to 30 Hue lights + 4 Sonoff ZMB5s.. and wait for the network to rebuild or am I panicking for nothing?

In summary, is it recommended to have lighting on one circuit or separately per room?

[oak cliff]

1 circuit for lights on a floor is pretty standard. as long as you have neutrals at the switches then you will likely be fine.

[limber leaf]

I definitely have neutrals at all lights and switches.

Live, Neutral and Earth (UK).

Sounds like I've been panicking for nothing 💀

Thanks for the advice again aha

[oak cliff]

UK Here to. most rewires these days have the lighting circuit/ring goes to the switches and then the swiches also go up to the light.
instead of the old way where the ring went to the ceiling and the switch was just a loop.

only slight complication can be if you have multiple switches, then the 2nd "remote" switch may not have a neutral

[oak cliff]

no worries. always happy to help 🙂

[limber leaf]

I know each power cable comes down the wall in to the switch and then back up and out to the next switch.

Then there additional wire or 2 for whatever lights I have.

I.e.

1 - to pendant light
2 - spotlights

So 4 wires in a backbox.

I was going to wago the neutrals together and then have 1 additional short neutral wire to go into the switch itself

Luckily I put 47mm backboxes everywhere

[oak cliff]

deep backboxes was indeed a great decision. 🙂

[limber leaf]

So all hope isn't lost 😂

[oak cliff]

did you have them run some ethernet whilst they were in the walls?

although don't let the spark terminate the ethernet. they always do it wrong 😛

[limber leaf]

Thats my task 😉

[oak cliff]

nice

[limber leaf]

I strictly told them not to touch the ethernet or any of the speaker wiring in the home cinema 😅

Having a unifi setup under the stairs

[oak cliff]

yup keeping them away from network and speaker wiring seems like a good call.

[limber leaf]

I've seen too many horror stories of sparkies doing low voltage wrong when it comes to termination.

[oak cliff]

you haven't lived until you have seen a spark cut an optical cable and wago it back together. "it will be fine, electricity is electricity mate, i have been doing this job for 40 odd years"...

at that point you cant win and you have to fire them.

[limber leaf]

I did have a battle with the sparkie about having the cinema room sockets on its own RCBO.

He couldn't understand why I wanted it on its our circuit

[oak cliff]

I guess it depends on your plans.

I have seen some people have all lights / sockets / switches wired back to central location so they can do all switching/control at 1 location. but you really need a spark that understands why you want that otherwise you will never be able to explain.

costs a lot more too obviously.

[limber leaf]

I guess so, maybe I'm too narrow visioned 😅

[limber leaf]

I did want that, but my sparkie didnt understand and neither did my dad.

Stuck in the old school ways but hey-ho

[oak cliff]

although I don't get a major battle some of them put up. if its not totally unreasonable and the customer is paying for it then who cares what they want.

[oak cliff]

its a bit "special" really.

they might not know how to test it either I guess...

[limber leaf]

When I said neutrals in all light switches, I said I needed them without question and he looked at my gone out.

Then said the RCBOs cost more and then I interrupted saying I was paying..

[limber leaf]

I hope he does, im getting a certificate at the end. He's a fully qualified electrician with 35+ years in the field with his own company

Local family friend

[oak cliff]

yeah I meant if you had had everything wired back to central instead of shared circuits.

[oak cliff]

yeah, all RCBO's is getting more common. its not even that much more expensive anymore.

neutrals at switches was a problem with older sparks for a while but they finally got the message now that people want smart devices.

and they were not getting work if they refused to do it.

the whole UK electrical industry is undergoing massive shifts at the moment. we are playing catch up because of the older sparks holding us back for years.

3 phase to residential as standard is on the horizon too which is gunna be pretty awesome.

although people are loosing their minds over it because of the (current) plan for it.

new 3phase meter will go in a box on the boundary and your old single phase will be attached to 1 of the phases and old meter bypassed.
then if you want to make use of 3p its down to you on your side of the meter.

because DNO owns stuff on grid side of the meter they dont want to own stuff running to where ever meters have been stuck randomly on houses and the cable to it.
fresh cable which they own up to the boundry then everything on the property is yours. which makes sense.

[limber leaf]

Im unsure what I would use 3 phase for at home, I use it all the time as a engineer of machinery

[oak cliff]

mostly its more for if you get high power stuff like EV charger / battery storage / heatpump you can split them onto different phases.
but there are 3phase versions of these things too if you wanted.

it also allows you to export more if you export across phases. so if you have a a large solar array and want to export a lot etc...

There is a lot of future proofing in having it too.

[limber leaf]

Its my first home, so no solar or EV.

The house is from 1960 and has no earthing either 😂

National Grid is charging £530+ to put an isolator in and earthing fml

[oak cliff]

oof, your unlucky that hadn't been done at some point...

i guess i can see why the rewire 😛

our grid desperately needs more storage on it otherwise we are going to have chaos with the "duck curve problem" soon given how much solar is appearing everywhere.