ceiling light (how to install)

I'm going to tell you how to install a modern ceiling light and replace the ugly light fixture that you have above. So let's get to it. I've got a lot of awesome tips for you. Before you know it, you're going to have a new and modern look. So let's get started.

Always start every single electrical project by turning the power off at the circuit breaker or your fuse box Double check that the power is off by flipping the switch on and checking that the light doesn't turn on.

ceiling light (how to install)

Carefully remove the old shade. In this case, the shade is just attached to the fixture with these tabs. So I'm just going to remove the glass shade and yuck! There are some nasty bugs inside there.

One little step that I like to take is two-fold: take the light bulbs out 'cause they're made out of glass and they will shatter if you break them yes, I found this out the hard way; the other extra tip is to use blue tape to hold the old fixture to the ceiling while you lower it down. I like there to be slack in the tape so that I can lower the lampshade down about 4-6 inches.

 

The fixture is held to the junction box with 2 screws. And in this case, these screws actually have nuts on them. So all you have to do is loosen the nuts or the screws, whichever one you have, to lower the fixture down from the junction box.

With the 2 nuts removed, I can now lower the light fixture from the junction box carefully.

All right as you can see, the 3 pieces of blue tape are holding the weight of the light fixture for me. So now I can just fish out the wiring from the connection box. Now you can fish out the old wirings. So I've got neutral wires here. All the white wires are pigtailed together.

So in this case, all the hotwires are wired together, too. This light is on a 3-way switch. So I just wanted to let you know about that in case you're wondering about this red wire here. There were also black wires that were shoved up into the junction box.

Plus then finally you have your ground wires that are all pigtailed together. And I highly recommend taking a picture of the wiring so that you know how to wire the new light together. With all the wires exposed, now you can undo the pigtails and remove the light fixture from the junction box.

I personally like to unwire the hotwires first so all the black wires go first. Then I like to unwire the neutrals next. And then finally, unwire the ground wires last.

Now I can take the fixture off the ceiling and remove all the blue tape.

Oops! Almost

There's one ground wire connecting the lamp to the bracket here. So I just need to take that off or cut it off, whichever. Remove the old mounting bracket using a flathead screwdriver or Philips head screwdriver, whichever you have or whatever screw you have that's holding this bracket to the junction box.

Hey, you know what one extra step that I forgot to tell you about? When you lower the light down, you can actually stick a voltage detector in between the light and touch the wires and see if they're alive. So this is just one extra precautionary step to ensure that you don't get electrocuted.

So sure enough even though I've been handling these wires for a few minutes they're not live. But I wanted to tell you about using a voltage detector. Now it's time to take the mounting bracket for the new light.

Have the green ground screw facing you, and take the longer mounting screws and place them into the inside holes so this hole here and this hole here because you're going to use these mounting screws to mount the light to the bracket. So turn them maybe like 3 or 4 revolutions. So put them in, turn those clockwise 3 or 4 times.

Very good, now you have your mounting bracket ready to go and be mounted onto the junction box. Now you can add the mounting bracket to the junction box using the shorter screws. Now slide the screw through the slot and get it started in the junction box. And you can use your screwdriver to tighten the screws that mount the mounting bracket to the junction box.

Here's the top of the ceiling fixture. So you have one bare copper ground wire. And then each light socket has a hotwire and a white, neutral wire. So there's one light socket there. And then here's the other light socket. So again, it has a black hotwire and a neutral white wire. So the

first thing that we're going to do is wrap the bare copper ground wire around this green screw. So I'm going to wrap it around this green screw.

And then tie it into the ground wires that are coming from the junction box. So again, we're just going to wrap this copper ground wire around the ground screw right here. And we're going to tighten that down. And then we're going to pigtail the ground wire that we just wrapped around the green ground screw with the ground wires that are coming from the junction box. So when you're done with the ground wires, you can push them up into the junction box. The next step is to wire the neutrals together.

So what I like to do is twist the wires coming from the light. So I'm going to twist the white wires from the light together. And then I'm going to join them to the neutral wires coming out of the junction box. I'm going to put a wire nut over all these wires. Okay. So there are all the neutral wires. They're wired together.

The next step is to wire all the hotwires together. In this case, I'm going to wire the black wires from the light together. And the hotwire that we're going to be using is the red hotwire. So I'm just going to be just wiring the red hotwire with the black wires from the light 'cause that's what fits the configuration of my set up.

Yours could be different so make sure you follow the directions that come with your light. Try to wrap the wires from the light to the wires in the junction box by about 1-2 revolutions, then twist on the wire nut again. And then finally, we don't use the black wires that are up in the junction box.

They're pigtailed to make the electrical connection. But they don't really touch the wires that are coming from the light fixture. So again, we've got all the ground wires wired together; all the hotwires from the light wire to the red wire coming from the junction box and then all the white wires from the light connected to the white wires in the junction box; and all the black wires in the junction box just pigtailed together.

Push all the wires up into the junction box. Now it's time to mount the new modern fixture onto the mounting screws here. Push the fixture up such that the mounting screws come through.

And then you can turn the fixture so that the screws are in the smaller portion of the keyhole. Now you can use your screwdriver to tighten the modern light fixture up to the junction box.

Now you take the threaded nipple and screw it into the light fixture. There's a locking nut on this nipple, and what you need to do is screw that up to the top like so that the nipple doesn't come loose. Now you take your light bulbs and screw them into the fixture like so. Just make sure that they're appropriately rated for the new light.

In this case, I'm using 60W light bulbs. Carefully take your shade, slide it up over the nipple.

Usually these lights come with a decorative piece like this one. And then you just screw on the end piece here like so. Not too tight 'cause you could break the glass lamp shade.

All right, And there you go. Now you can turn the power back on at the circuit breaker.

Well there you have it. That's how you install modern ceiling lights. Not too bad, right?

Tons of different tips that I want you to follow like: taping the old light fixture to the ceiling; and checking the voltage with the voltage detector to make sure you don't get electrocuted; and as always, turn off the circuit breaker or take the fuse out when you're working with electricity