I've just taken down an old light in a spare room to replace it with a new one - but when taking out the old i found it was only connected with one wire (I presume the live).

Is it possible for me to connect my new lfitting just to this one wire? Or should I connect the neutral to something?? The earth is connected to the casing.

MatNZ, April 2009

Remarkable if it managed to work on just one wire :)

Earth is good to provide a measure of safety and help to prevent electrocution.

Live is usually required and often (always) has some form of interruption device - a switch somewhere in the circuit to turn the light off and on.

See what happens without the Neutral - you never know - but my guess is that you will probably need to connect it if you wish the light to operate.

Peccavi, April 2009