Hi! You guys have been great in the past so here's a new question. We have a wall which runs around our property on the street side and we have two large carriage lamps outside. These are controlled by a switch inside the front door. However, there are no lights inside the wall except at the house itself and there are three steps down on the pathway and people are always falling down or I have to walk them out to the street. I want to put in some path lights.
Recently I found the wire (cable?) which comes out of the ground near the wall and enters the wall to power the carriage lights. Could I cut this wire, splice it to attach 2 (or maybe 4) other 120V path lights? If so, how could I waterproof the splice area? Having these lights controlled by the same indoor switch is fine. Thanks for the help!

Tina

 

The connection needs to be made in outdoor rated box. The wire needs to outdoor rated cable burried 24" if only wire. If you use conduit it can be burried 18".

 

The problem with splicing into an existing run is that you need some excess wire to work with. Is it stamped "UF"?

If you cannot pull enough slack to meet code (something around 6" to stick out of your junction box) you can use two j-boxes, for example one by the ground and one higher up on the wall. Run new wire between the two new boxes and cut the existing wire at the center point between those boxes so you have excess in those boxes. There's more to it of course but that's a start.