How to install POTS light in an insulated ceiling | No attic access

in today's video I'm going to show you how I took this drab kitchen lighting from that this in just a few short hours all right so the first thing we want to do is determine our layout and then start marking our ceiling now when I initially start laying everything out I like to Mark the center of the ceiling now the main reason for doing that would be to make sure that each light is equal distance from the center and not just lined up off the wall now this isn't something you necessarily have to do it's just an extra step I like to take just to verify my spacing once I have marked my Center I will start marking the locations for each light now initially I'm just going to Mark each location with a piece of tape and that's mainly so that when I step back I can actually take a look and just make sure I like my spacing before I start cutting any holes out now if you're not sure how many lights you need or what kind of spacing is required there's lots of online calculators that can help with this I'll also link to one in the description below next we are going to remove the old light now it's important to remember that we're going to be using the existing wiring for the first light in the chain so we don't want to cut or damage the wiring until we know exactly how much we need next I'm going to go ahead and start cutting the holes for each light now before I cut each hole I'm going to re-measure and mark the center of each light it's always a good idea to verify everything one more time before making any cuts now one thing you will notice is that on the first two cuts I'm just using a standard hole saw with no dust collection this works it just makes a huge mess so if you can I would definitely recommend using some kind of a hole saw dust collection which you'll see I do use on the third and the fourth hole now because I had already started the project I ended up just having to pick something up at the local hardware store now it wasn't the best so I wouldn't recommend it as it wasn't very sturdy and it's still got a lot of dust everywhere I'll put links in the description for the ones I would actually recommend now along with the four holes for the lights I'm also going to be cutting another hole just so it's easier to get the wiring through the ceiling joist which you'll see later in the video next we're going to drill through our floor joists now where you can and cannot drill will vary a little bit based on the size of the floor joist But A good rule of thumb is no closer than two inches from either Edge once our holes are drilled we can go ahead and start running our wire now the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to pull the existing wire through the hole for the first light now before you pull the wire you will want to make sure you check and make sure there's no Staples holding the steam wire to one of the floor joists in most cases wiring will be stapled to a floor or ceiling joist when it's next to a junction box or outlet box next I'm going to take my fish tape and run it through the floor joists foreign next I'm going to connect the new wiring to the fish tape to do that I just need to strip the wire back to the copper and then bend it around the hook on the fish tape now because I am pulling it through a floor joist I'm going to go ahead and wrap this in electrical tape just to make sure it doesn't snag on anything foreign now I can go ahead and start pulling it through now one thing you may or may not have noticed is that I'm still using 12 2 wire versus 14 2 which is normally used for lighting the reason for this is that 12 2 is what was already being used and even though you can technically mix wire sizes it's best to maintain the same wire size throughout as the different wire sizes are rated for different size Breakers and if someone were to change the breaker size in the future it could cause issues foreign the wire pretty much in any order you want the only thing I do recommend is if you're going to be running through an insulated ceiling or you're going through a floor joist or anything like that make sure you use a fish tape and I will link to one of those in the description otherwise usually you can pick one up at your local hardware store next we can go ahead and start wiring up our lights so first we want to cut the Romex seasoning back about two inches then we can cut the sheeting back on each of the wires about half an inch this is going to depend a little bit on the length of your connector as you don't want Bears wires sticking out of the connector itself now for the most part the wiring is pretty straightforward each light comes with a slim junction box that has three three port snap-in connectors that make connecting up the wires pretty easy now for the connections it's just white to white black to black and green to the open copper ground wire in each piece of Romex then we can push the wire back into the box and close it up now once the wiring is complete you simply push the box back up in the ceiling and connect your light back up then you're going to snap the light onto the drywall using the two metal clips foreign [Music] all right guys as always thanks for watching and we'll catch you on the next one

Channel: Home Repair Hub

Views: 16,438

Keywords:

Id: BleALLdl8zs

Length: 7min 16sec (436 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 23 2023