Friday, August 10, 2007

bathroom light fixture


Today I knocked off another project that’s been hanging over my head for a while:replacing the bathroom light fixture in our master bath. We bought a new fixture at IKEA almost two years ago and I hadn’t gotten around to putting it in yet! I put it off because it involved moving the j-box in the ceiling, and going up in the attic is kind of a pain in the ass. However, the wife and kids went to a playdate and then swim lessons today, and I had a good four hours of time to myself. I also wanted to do it in the morning since it gets so hot up there in the afternoon.

First I turned off the power at the circuit breaker. Always a good idea to spend some time labeling the individual switches in your circuit breaker box, if they’re not already. I have an older house, so my box has been rewired a couple of times (prior to my owning it). I went through and made sure I knew which switch turned off which outlets and lights so that I could do electrical repairs without shutting off the power to the whole house. If in doubt, just turn off the main breaker, which should shut off everything. HOWEVER, DO NOT trust that this is always the case. Use a circuit tester before you take apart any existing wiring to make sure the power is off. I shocked the hell out of myself at our old house trying to fix the rangetop. I had the power turned off at the main breaker, got busy disassembling the range, and the next thing I knew I was laying on the kitchen floor. Some nimrod had somehow bypassed the circuit breaker panel to install the electric range! So always, always test the circuit you’re working on before taking it apart.

Next I opened the fixture to check it out and make sure there weren’t any surprises. I laid out all the parts and figured out how they went together. I held up the mounting part against the ceiling where I wanted it, marked a spot roughly in the middle, and drilled a hole up into the attic so I had a reference point.

Then I went in the attic to scout it out. I used to climb from the top of my old wooden six foot ladder (Danger! Not a step! it says, but how else was I going to get up there?) to the shelves in the closet, and hoist myself in from there. I eventually bought a sixteen foot extension ladder to be able to get on the roof more easily, and it works great to get in the attic too. I figured I’d better go up and make sure I could relocate the j-box (short for junction box) to an existing stud so I didn’t have to install a new one. However, if you don’t have stud exactly where you want to hang your new light, it’s not hard to put one between existing joists. When I managed to get to the area over my bathroom, I found that I could add a small piece of two-by-four to an existing stud and the old box would work fine. So, I dragged my toolbox up into the attic and got to work.

It helps to have kneepads to climb around in the attic. I also took up a length of board to lay across the studs where I was going to end up working. I found the j-box and pried it loose from the rafter stud, then pulled out the house wiring. I had to pry a couple of tacks loose along the length of the wire to get it where I wanted it -- I just kept them in pretty good shape and carefully hammered them back in along it’s new path when I was done. I used the j-box as a template and scratched a line in the drywall where I needed a hole, making sure that it was in the right place to attach to the stud. Using a drywall saw, I started a cut in the hole I had drilled from below and made my way around the circle. I made sure the j-box hung through the hole flush with the ceiling (easier to seal from below that way) and put the wires back in. Then I nailed it to my modified stud and I was ready to get back out of the attic.

Tip that I figured out too late: cover the area below where you’ll be working. I had a lot of dust to clean up in the bathroom when I was done, and I hadn’t covered or moved our toothbrushes or anything. I had to run them through the dishwasher, and I had to vacuum way more than I would have if I had just put down a drop cloth before I went into the attic.

After that, hanging the light was fairly easy; the one we bought had a separate wiring harness with a connector plug attached to the mounting plate so I didn’t have to hang the whole fixture from the wires before screwing it into the j-box. If your fixture does not come with this luxury, you might need someone else to hold up the fixture while you attach the wiring. The wiring is color-coded; white to white, black to black. Green or bare aluminum are ground wires; they should be attached to a ground screw or the ground wire in your existing wiring. Use wire nuts and make sure the bare ends of the wires are the same length to make them easier to connect to each other. Make sure your wire nuts are the right size to screw the threaded part down to the plastic sheathing on each wire and cover up the bare wire. Twist the wires nuts hard enough to make the wires wrap around each other a bit and are firmly secured.

Then line up the screws on your fixture to the holes on the j-box and you should be pretty close to done. Fixtures vary widely, and some need extra attention even after they are attached to the wiring. In my case I had to do a bit of leveling since the fixture is a four-lamp bar hung from two adjustable wires. That was it. Then... cleanup.


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