New Basement Lights

Sorry for the lack of pictures, this was a quick project and I forgot to grab the camera.

The new house has some issues that I've been meaning to get to and one such problem is the lighting in the basement. Specifically the poor condition of the lights in the laundry/utility area. The main lighting consists of a regular incandescent and 3 fluorescent work lights. Though they provide enough light they were poorly connected. The incandescent was on a switch by the door but the light socket had an adapter that split it into two 2-prong outlets in addition to the light socket. The three work lights were 3-prong connectors and so the previous owners plugged them into 3 to 2 prong adapters and left the grounds loose. These adapters were then connected to two wire extension cords that were strung through the ceiling to plug into that light socket adapter I mentioned before. This was an electrical fire waiting to happen.

Thankfully I found some new LED shop lights by helping a buddy of mine hang some up in his new garage. We went to Costco and picked up three of them for me to use in my basement. But my first step was to run proper electrical to get them powered. After determining where I would place the lights I mounted some metal outlet boxes in the joists. Metal boxes and covers are the preferred way to install exposed boxes and these will not be behind a ceiling at all. I used some Romex I had left from other projects and pulled it through existing holes in the joists being used by other wires. These outlets are wired into each other and then fed off an always on box near the back of the room.

Where the Romex comes into the boxes, I used 1/2" breakout clamps to secure the wires in the box and I also stapled the wires to the joists where necessary. With the wire properly installed and supported I wired up the outlets: hot to hot, common to common, ground to ground. Where the new wire met with the old work I didn't have a ground wire; the metal boxes and conduit acted as ground. So I tied the new ground wire to the existing box and turned the power back on. After testing all of the outlets (one had an open ground I had to correct), I installed the cover plates and proceeded to install the new lights.

The lights came with two mounting mechanisms: chain and hooks or flush mount. I chose to do the flush mount since there is limited headroom and I don't care for the look of the chains. The fixtures come with a template you use to determine where to mount the brackets. After figuring out how much clearance beyond the mounts I needed I was able to mark the bracket mounts and install them with the provided hardware. With the brackets installed I simply snapped the lights into them and plugged them in.

The LEDs are significantly brighter than the old fluorescent lights. They also have several configurable settings to change the brightness, ambient light sensors, auto off functionality, and motion sensors. The last one is important because that is why I didn't wire them up to a switch, the lights turn on when motion is detected. Very useful for when you walk downstairs with a full laundry basket.