How to Install Undercabinet Lighting and Power | All About Lights | Ask This Old House

[Music] the under cabinet lighting is a little bit of a hassle you have to turn on each light with individual switches two yep and here's the third okay you know the lights are always burning out and we get you know cracks and them so it's a little difficult sure sure um and on top of that the outlets is another kind of hassle that we have so you really have to bend over and try to figure out where they are well the plug strip that's mounted under the cabinets here is real nice keeps all your outlets off your backsplash everything looks real nice they pulled it a little bit too far forward I'd like to put it back against the wall which will keep the cords from being right out in front of your face here we also we'll extend it right here to the edge and then over here we'll put a nice piece right here which will give you complete coverage you can't have cords going over cook tops you need to have them where they're going be used the lighting we'll replace the lighting we'll bring It Forward which will cover the complete countertop here on that side we'll put one switch right here on the wall which will cover everything that sounds great let's get to work before we do any work we're going to shut the power off to the outlets and the lights so we can get all the old stuff out of there so this is your old fixture this is your new fixture we're going to install they look very similar let me show you the differences underneath This Hood we have a fluorescent tube they come in different lengths you can see the small and the large they burn out every couple of years yeah we've already had to replace one pain in the neck right so this is the new one this has no light bulbs these little dots are diodes and they emit a bunch of light you're telling me that these dots are going to give me enough light and you you'll never have to change any light bulbs because there aren't any sounds good let's put them in I'll show [Music] you all right Lori let me show you what we have going on here before you had two wires coming out of the wall at this point and one over there this was constant power unswitched from the electrical panel now we want to switch them all on one switch so what I needed to do was add a third wire here now these wires aren't going to fit in this light fixture you can see it's pretty tight so we've had to remove them put them in an electrical box box inside your cabinet the Box will have a nice plate on it you won't even see it from here the the switched power now going to the lights is going to come up over the cabinet down the wall to the front of the cabinet which is where the new light fix is going to go on this side over here same thing up over down the cabinet to the front of it which is where this new light fixt is going to go we don't need this wire anymore you're not going to have any wires there at all and this is going to be the new switch location does that all make sense I think so all right let's get to work all right I'm wiring the switch the power comes in on the black and when the switch is on goes out on the red the white is for neutral and the bare wire connects to the green wire which is for ground that's for [Music] safety now we're ready to wire up the lights the connection to the fixture is very simple they give you these pushin connectors no wir NS the mounting screws a captive makes it really easy to screw them in and they're the correct length so they won't go through the bottom of the cabinet to join fixture to fixture there's no wires needed they give you this Joiner connector which sends power to the next [Music] fixture lights are done now it's time for the outlets very similar to what you had before mounts underneath the cabinet has 120 volt receptacle 6 in or so one difference there's a USB outlet here for a tablet or a phone sounds good I actually use my tablet to look at recipes while I'm cooking great the only thing we need to do is run a wire from where it comes from the electrical panel up over the cabinet to that side for that strip sounds good all [Music] right all right Lori power's back on go ahead and hit that switch all right wow it's spr already now that's not only a switch it's a special dimmer for LEDs right on the right side oh wow that's such a great feature there you go and now what I've done is put the outlets on this side and this side we have a USB charging Outlet right here grab that tablet and give it a shot let's try it at that charging up there you go thanks so much Scott this has really made a huge [Music] Improvement

Channel: This Old House

Views: 826,231

Keywords: kitchen cabinet, kitchen lighting, undercabinet lighting, task lighting, lights, LED light, electrical outlet, electrician, backsplash, kitchen, home repair, home improvement, renovation, remodeling, how-to, diy, ask this old house, this old house, scott caron, norm abram, tom silva, kevin o'connor, richard trethewey, roger cook

Id: FzWu2nOJ614

Length: 5min 40sec (340 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 28 2016