How to Install Pendant Light Fixtures

Pendant lights come in all shapes and sizes.

Pendant light fixture designs range from the simplest single light mini-pendants to elaborate crystal chandeliers. Within each category of pendant lights, the designs are expanded further by color and style. Installing a pendant light fixture in your home can add elegance where once hung a generic ceiling light. It can also increase the light to an area by lowering the light closer to the area you wish to illuminate. Pendant light fixture installation consists of several steps and several parts, but the end result is a beautiful fixture that will enhance the décor of your room.

Things You'll Need

• Safety goggles
• Stepladder
• Screwdriver
• Chain pliers or regular pliers
• Soft cloth
• Orange wire nuts

Instructions

1. Turn off the electricity to the circuit that you are installing the pendant on by turning off the breaker at the main electrical panel.

2. Assemble your light fixture according to the manufacturer's directions and locate the mounting hardware for your fixture. The most common mounting hardware consists of a fixture cross bar, a nipple, the canopy, a lock nut, the screw collar loop and the chain.

3. Attach the fixture cross bar to the electrical light fixture box with screws provided with the light fixture. The fixture cross bar is a flat metal bar with several opening cut into it consisting of slots and a round center hole.

4. Connect the pendant chain to the fixture using chain pliers. Chain pliers are designed to open and close decorative chain without damaging or deforming the chain links. You can also use regular pliers, but use a soft cloth to protect the chain links. Open the end links of chain and attach one end to the loop that is connected to the pendant and attach the other end to the screw collar loop. The screw collar loop is a loop welded to a round exterior and interior threaded piece of metal shaped like a horizontal donut, this shape allows for the wires to thread through it.

5. Thread the lamp wire connected to the pendant through the chain and though the screw collar loop.

6. Screw the lock nut onto the screw collar loop. The lock nut will hold the canopy to the ceiling later in the installation but must be attached now. Thread the lamp wires through the lock nut and attach it to the screw collar loop.

7. Lay the canopy against the lock nut. It will not secure to the fixture until you complete the installation--so do not be alarmed that this piece is loose--but it must be put into place prior to final installation.

8. Install the nipple into the interior threads of the screw collar loop. The nipple is a hollow metal tube that is threaded on the exterior of the tube. Thread the lamp wires through the nipple and screw this into the screw collar.

9. Wire the pendant to the power supply wires. The power supply wires consist of a black and white wire located inside the electrical fixture box. Thread the lamp wires through the round center hole in the fixture cross bar. Feel the lamp wires. One side of the lamp wire is smooth; connect this wire to the black wire from the electrical box by twisting an orange wire nut onto the two wires. Feel of the other side of the lamp wire, it has ribs down the entire length of the wire and feels rough. Connect this rough wire to the white wire from the electrical box in the same manner you connected the black and smooth wires.

10. Connect the pendant to the ceiling. Screw the nipple into the round center hole in the fixture cross bar you installed in Step 3. Lay the canopy against the ceiling and tighten the lock nut that is attached to the screw collar loop, securing it against the canopy. This will hold the canopy in place, covering the electrical light fixture box and all the wiring.

11. Turn on the electricity to the circuit that you installed the pendant on by turning on the breaker at the main electrical panel.

Tips & Warnings

• Always make sure the electricity is off to the area in which you are working to avoid electrical shock.

References

• This Old House: How to Install a Pendant Light
• Aubuchon Hardware: How to Install a Light Fixture