How to Add a Light Fixture to Existing Wiring
Rewiring your home for new lighting is something only a professional electrical should do. However, if your existing wiring is working fine, and you want a new light fixture in place of one that's already in the circuit, that's a project that a competent do-it-yourselfer can undertake. Make sure you're cutting power to the right fixture (test it with a fresh bulb), and get a fixture with a base that's as big or bigger than the old one, so you won't have to touch up the surface paint around it. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
Instructions
-
-
1
Turn off the power to the existing ceiling electrical fixture at the main circuit breaker box. Set up your stepladder under the fixture.
-
2
Remove the screws that hold the existing fixture to the ceiling. Lower the fixture enough to expose the wire connections behind it. Disconnect the wires of the light from the wires coming out of the electrical box, by unscrewing the wire nuts. Remove the fixture completely. You should have a fully exposed ceiling electrical box with a black wire, a white wire and a copper wire hanging from it.
-
-
3
Find the mounting plate that came with your new light fixture. It will be a flat piece of metal, either a disk or rectangle, with screwholes in it. Attach to the electrical box using the screws that came with it. The wire ends in the electrical box should be hanging down past the mounting plate, either going around it or through a large hole in the plate.
-
4
Twist the end of the bare copper grout wire from the box to the green screw on the mounting plate. Tighten the screw.
-
5
Hold up the new fixture. Connect the black wire from the box to the black wire from the fixture by twisting a wire nut over both of them together. Repeat for the white wires.
-
6
Press the light fixture up to the mounting plate, tucking the wires up into the electric box as you do. Attach the fixture to the mounting plate with the provided screws. Restore the electricity.
-
1
