How to Hardwire a Flood Light

Installing floodlights outside your home can be a crime deterrent.

If you're looking for ways to protect your home from criminals, a good deterrent can be a floodlight. There are many different types of floodlights available on the market, so you should be able to find one that fits your needs. You can also get floodlights that are hooked up to a motion detector and turn off after a pre-set time once they stop detecting any movement, which can help save you money on your electrical bills, as well as make the lights last longer.

Things You'll Need

• Screwdriver
• Extension box
• 1/2 inch metal conduit connector
• Pencil
• Tape measure
• Hacksaw
• File
• Right-angle conduit connector
• Metal electrical conduit
• Level
• Conduit hangers
• Screws
• Junction box
• Drill
• 7/8 inch spade bit
• 14/2 non-metallic cable
• Floodlight fixture
• Putty
• Putty knife
• 2 inch long galvanized decking screws
• Electrician's fish tape
• Black, green, and white 14-gauge copper stranded wires
• Electrical tape
• Utility knife
• Wire strippers
• Twist-on wire connectors
• Light bulbs

Instructions

1. Decide where you want to install the light. Many people choose to install one over their garage doors, so we'll use that in our example.

2. Turn off the power to the garage at the electrical box, then test the outlets by plugging something into the outlets and testing them to make sure that they don't work.

3. Remove one of the outlets in the wall of the garage. Remove the cover plate, then unscrew the screws at the top and bottom of the outlet that's holding it in place. Lift the outlet out of the box, and unscrew the wires that are attached to the outlet, then remove the outlet.

4. Screw the mounting plate for the extension box to the outlet box in the wall.

5. Punch out the round knock-out slot in the top of the extension box with a screwdriver, then attach a 1/2-inch metal conduit connector. Attach the extension box to the mounting plate with the screws provided with the extension box.

6. Mark a spot on the wall inside the garage nearest to the spot where the electrical cable will run through the wall to the floodlight.

7. Measure the space between the bottom of the ceiling to the top of the extension box, and subtract and 1-and-a-half inches from the length. Cut a piece of electrical conduit to this size, removing any sharp edges with a file.

8. Put a right-angle connector on one end of the conduit that you just cut, then hook the conduit to the electrical box (connect the side that doesn't have the right-angle connector). Make sure that the conduit is plumb (vertically straight), and secure it to the wall with a conduit hanger.

9. Start at the right-angle connector on top of the conduit, and begin installing conduit, running it close to the spot you marked on the wall where the cable will run through the wall to the floodlight. Make sure that the conduit is level, and use conduit hangers every 12 inches. If you have to go around a corner, use a conduit elbow for that section.

10. Connect a junction box to the end of the conduit, then attach it to the ceiling by screwing it into place.

11. Measure the space from the top of the doorway to the spot you marked on the inside of the wall. Go outside, and mark a spot on the exterior garage wall that fits the measurement you just took.

12. Drill a hole through the wall at the mark you just made with a 7/8" spade bit, going all the way through to the inside of the garage.

13. Go back into the garage, and run 14/2 non-metallic cable from the junction box through the hole to the outside.

14. Go back outside and and run the 14/2 cable through the cable connector on the back of the outlet box for the floodlight, and screw it into place. Fill the hole in with putty to prevent leaks.

15. Put the outlet box flat against the siding and screw it into the wall with 2" long galvanized decking screws.

16. Take the cover plate off of the right-angle conduit connector on top of the extension box, then guide electrician's fish tape down through the conduit until it comes out the front of the extension box. Attach black, green, and white 14-gauge stranded copper wires to the fish tape with electrical tape, then pull it up until the wires come out of the right-angle conduit connector.

17. Unhook the fish tape from the black, green, and white cables. Go to the junction box near the exterior wall, and run the fish tape through the conduit from the junction box to the right-angle conduit connector. Reattach the three cables to the fish tape with electrical tape, and pull them through the conduit until they come out of the junction box.

18. Following the instructions provided by the manufacturer, assemble the floodlight.

19. Cut the cable coming through the wall from the outlet box on the outside so that it's 6 inches long, then remove the plastic sheathing with a utility knife. Cut 1/2 inch of insulation off of the black and white wires with wire strippers.

20. Connect the wires from the outlet box to the wires coming from the junction box by twisting them together with twist-on wire connectors. Connect white to white and black to black, and screw the green grounding wire into the green grounding screw on the base of the floodlight. Connect the wires running through the conduit into the wires coming out through the extension box the same way.

21. Attach the floodlight fixture to the outlet box, and install the light bulbs.

22. Restore the power to the garage, and turn the floodlight on. Adjust the bulbs and motion detector (if you have one). When positioning the lights, ideally you want to light up the side of the house and as much of the surrounding area as possible, this way anyone creeping along the side of your house can be spotted more easily.

Tips & Warnings

• Check to make sure that the power is turned off when doing electrical work. After turning the power off at the electrical box, you might want to consider placing a note on the box telling people not to turn the power back on while you're installing the light.

• Wear safety goggles when drilling through the wall.

References

• This Old House: How to Install a Garage Floodlight
• HandymanHowTo.com: How to Install a Floodlight Part 1
• HandymanHowTo.com: How to Install a Floodlight Part 2
• The Campaign for Dark Skies: Home & Commercial "Security" Floodlighting