Tuesday, September 20, 2011

How NOT to install a light

My home was built about 3 years ago. So I want a time machine to go back about 3 years ago and tell the builder to fire the electrician who installed the lights in my house. While working on Erin's room I took down the old light so I can install the small chandelier for her room. The diagram below is what a basic installation for a light is going to look like (image from here). If you haven't replaced a light before it might take a little while to figure out but it's not overly complicated, right?



Below is what the electrician did in her room (and I assume the others, I'm going to have to look at those). There was NO cross bar. The screws that are supposed to screw the bar into the ceiling were screwed directly from the light to the ceiling like the orange lines indicate. They had to be screwed in at an angle because the holes don't line up. On top of that, one of the screws they put in the ceiling missed the hole and they kept driving the screw anyway with an end result that they put a hole in the box. Yeah, they made a new "hole" for the screw because at the angle they were going they couldn't reach the hole it was supposed to go into.



So, instead of getting her chandelier up yesterday I made another trip to Home Depot. I bought the cross plate and screws to install the light correctly but sadly ran out of daylight for the project. Ah well, I should have pictures of the new light for you tomorrow (cross your fingers for me?).

What kind of unexpected bumps are you running into lately?

1 comment:

  1. Hey, at least the builder installed the drain for your washing machine correctly! Oh, wait... :)

    ReplyDelete

I love comments. It's nice to know someone is reading and I appreciate and read every one.