How To Install Ceiling Light Without Existing Wiring

hey what's up you guys it's scott with everyday home repairs and today i want to show you how to install ceiling light when there is no junction box no light no fan there to begin with in this scenario we have a bedroom that does have a light switch like the one behind me but that actually switches the outlets a way to test that is with a simple outlet tester and if you guys don't have this i do recommend getting a voltage tester an outlet tester like this and a multimeter if you're going to do any electrical work because that's going to keep you safe so what you're going to do is plug this into the top outlet the lights show you that it's getting no power and then flip the switch you should see the tester indicate that there's now power at that outlet with no faults so what i want to do is leverage the wiring with that switch rewire the outlets so they're always powered on and then use the switch and a new romex wire coming up to the ceiling to install that light and control the light so we have nice ceiling lights brighten up the room and now the outlets are still in place but they're powered all the time so let's jump into it and start working through this install [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay so let's recap what you just saw in terms of laying everything out now obviously you guys don't need to use painter's tape and really diagram everything out but just wanted to show you what what i'm dealing with remember i have no access from the bottom i'm on a slab a concrete slab i have no access on the top there's no attic this is a condo so i can't go in the other unit and access through the floor or anything so i need to come from this outlet up through the wall with the romex cable and then i need to place the light fixture in the center of the room so i just measured putting painters tape in the center of the room so right in the middle point is x parts the spot where i would want to put the junction box to hold the light then by using the magnetic stud finder there's a couple different versions of this out there look down in the description you'll see a link to all the tools used here including this magnetic stud finder so that's how i found the floor joist and i wanted to make sure i'm in a cavity and then also that my junction box when i cut out that drywall that i'm going to be able to insert it i'm not hitting any floor joist so that looks good there so i'll run the romex cable and i'll fish it through this cavity between these two floor joists and then i'm going to need to cut out some drywall most likely halfway down this stud here all the way over to the corner and then i'm going to fish down through past this i'm going to drill through this stud and then bring the romex down to this junction box i only need to get the romex to the top of that junction box because the switch wires are running down there so i'll be able to one rewire all these outlets and i'll show you how to do that so they're always powered on and they don't have that switchable outlet feature and then two to use the wires coming up to the switch and how to then control the power going to those romex which will then turn the ceiling light on or off so now let's cut a few holes [Music] do [Music] okay so i think i got it with two holes cut obviously i need the hole to install the box for the light to sit on now this box is simply for a led light that's very light it can't hold much weight and definitely shouldn't be holding anything like a fan so i'm just going to insert that box and what i'll be able to do is run my romex wire and i have actually a drop a small drop on the other side of this wall for a laundry closet so i'm able to run the romax on the outside of this load bearing wall and then come back through where we have the painters tape this cavity going down and then i have a vent on the bottom here which gives me access to the metal junction box so i can pop out one of those sides i can put a strain relief on there and then run that romex right in that gives me access and then that gives me a full route of romex all the way up to my light and that should be good enough to get everything wired up so remember i still want to rewire all my outlets but first what i'm going to do is wire up the light so i can prove out that everything works as expected and then once it does i'll button everything back up i'll rewire the outlets install new outlets and then we'll call it done all right so i'm using a fishing tape here and if you don't have one again you can look down in the description and see the link for what i'm using and i'm going to fish that through and grab it so i can tape on my 12 2 romex onto the end of that i'm using painters tape that's probably about the worst kind of tape you could use you definitely prefer electrical tape or duct tape so it doesn't come off while you're pulling the wire especially if you get into a tight spot where it's hitting something so just take your time if you had two people this helps quite a bit but you can't do it as one person and so now we got the romex through the light junction box hole and now we'll go and fish that through around that stud because i want to go down that cavity on the right hand side and sorry in the frame here you can't see i'm fishing it through that bottom vent so i'm taking the fishing line up now i'm taping the romex onto it and i'll pull it down through the wall cavity now i have plenty of extra wire on both ends you can see by the wires so now we're ready to start wiring up the junction box and also the light [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] all right so we have the light in we are fully wired where we have the romex coming into this outlet down here and now i also have all the other outlets at least wires removed so i want to spend a little time and show you guys what we got going on and how we're going to leverage this switch which you can see it has a yellow and black so the black hot wire is coming up the switch and it is returning a yellow wire which is also hot so that yellow wire is coming down here and it's going to this junction box then it branches off one thing to note is the wiring on this condo is through conduit so it's all single strand wires so it's more of like a commercial insulation opposed to residential so i no longer need this yellow because i'm using the yellow that's coming down from the switch and i'm going to connect that to the hot side this is the romex that i installed the hot side that's going to power the light and then i'm going to tie in the the ground and also the neutral so i need to take out these switchable hot lines that came in here and one thing you can notice and why i'll also be switching out all the outlets is if you compare a new outlet you'll see on the bronze or gold terminals which is the hot side there is a small tab here that tab needs to be broken off if you have a switchable circuit and then that's going to isolate the top and bottom outlet so you could have one always on and then one switch we are reconfiguring that so we're going to have hot coming in keeping that tab and this is just going to be always on each of the outlets will be always on and we'll have no switchable capability at our outlets because we're using the switch now to power our light so that's what we're going to be doing one thing i'm going to do is clean up these wires here and a lot of these yellows i'm going to be able to remove and because they're all in conduit i can actually pull those i can pull them through the conduit and take them out so we don't have confusion later on in some ways rewiring to why all these extra wires are in the junction boxes so let me show you how i do that okay so now i have an outlet that was getting fed a hot wire which is yellow from the other outlet box and then i it branches off to one more outlet so either one of these i need to remove from from the wiring so i can actually just pull these and because i have conduit in the wall i'm able just to remove that now this one went over to the other outlet and that is why you did not see a yellow wire get pulled from that output so if i pull this other one you'll you'll see over at that original outlet that wire is going to come out now what this also does is it starts to simplify which yellow wire i'm dealing with now if you have any questions on which wire ends here and goes over there you can do a what's called a continuity check so i'll put a link in the upper right hand corner which will dive in on how to use a multimeter for one of those continuity checks okay so once i pulled all the excess switchable hots out which i no longer need all those outlets are going to be powered always on now i only have the one yellow which is coming from my switch that i need to connect up with the hot side of the light so i'm going to wire all that up and then test out the circuit to make sure everything's working [Music] all right so we rewired the outlet so the switch no longer controls the top outlet on each of the switchable outlets now the outlets are supposed to be fully powered all the time which will test that and the switch should control this light now i really didn't dive too much into rewiring the other outlets but if you want more information on that just look at this link right here and now i'll give you the basics on rewiring in that one so let's test everything out and see if it works first up i have the light switch in the off position and i am going to use my outlet tester remember this outlet tester has three lights you're looking for the two amber lights that will indicate that the outlet is powered and everything's good so i'll test the top one which was a switchable outlet before okay so we got two amber lights which is good that's indicating power and everything is good and we'll test the bottom one as well right so our outlets are are good i'll do that same thing for all the outlets in the room and now the moment of truth will the switch control the light and it does so this is one of the best upgrades i think you can do if you have a bedroom without any ceiling lights but you have switchable outlets so you can hopefully easily rewire that put in the ceiling light and now you have much more light in the room and just a more modern look and if you're looking to sell a property as i will with this condo it's just what homeowners are expecting so if you have a different situation if you have some questions jump into the comments i'll happily give you my two cents again i'm not a licensed electrician so i'm just giving you my opinion i'm not giving you advice on the code electrical code in your area but hopefully you'll have more access than i did maybe an attic or maybe a basement so you might not have to do any drywall work like i do coming up to patch that wall and before you take off don't forget to subscribe to our channel we have weekly videos to help you with improvements and repairs around the house and we'll catch you on the next one take care

Channel: Everyday Home Repairs

Views: 775,273

Rating: 4.8125191 out of 5

Keywords: fishing electrical wire through walls, fishing electrical wire through ceiling, switched outlet to unswitched, ceiling light, ceiling light installation, ceiling light without wiring, ceiling light wiring

Id: K4GJhgb0RmM

Length: 16min 28sec (988 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 17 2020