My house was built in 1985 and is located in WI. I have successfully replaced lights in other rooms of the house with no problem - everything was as it was supposed to be. Recently removed the existing light above dining room table and encountered something new. There is no electrical junction box at this location. Instead there is a very large hole > 6" diameter. There appears to be a corrugated metal sleeve around the opening but difficult to see as it is covered by drywall. I can feel a screw on the edge of the sleeve. Across the opening, are two pieces of wood that the typical fixture mounting bracket that is normally attached to the junction box is attached to. The light fixture taken down didn't have grounding wire. My guess is that maybe the fixture I am removing is not original and that the original fixture maybe a can light and the wood is added to carry the weight of the replacement light fixture across existing opening. As new fixture is no heavier than original, am not really worried about the weight support. My question is the grounding. I'm assume to attach to the grounding screw on at mounting bracket is pointless as it is not tied back to anything metal? The black and white wire coming out of the ceiling is enclosed in a oversized flexible metal sleeve (not typical in the rest of the house). The only thing metal to tie the grounding wire of the new fixture would be either the screw on the large corrugated metal sleeve around the opening or back to the metal sleeve around the wiring but I'm not sure about either of those options?

 

Pictures (and paragraphs) would help? http://www.doityourself.com/forum/el...your-post.html

I think you are right that a can fixture was removed. You need to install a box. If you are like me and are not that good at Sheetrock patching use a decorative ceiling rosette to hide the patch.

 

Pictures by rad111 - Photobucket

Attached is a link to some photos. There are two photos taken from below and two taken above the ceiling. There appears to be some sort of box to the side of the opening. It is not visible from below but I was able to take some pictures of it when I put the camera up in the ceiling and randomly shot pictures. Sorry for the quality but I am unable to aim the camera above the ceiling. It took over 20 shots to get these.

 

that's bx flex cable and the ground is the metal casing itself as far as that ring i'm not sure but it doesn't look like its up to code,those pieces of wood is dangerous,the fixture could come down on your head or just yank the wires and cause a short,i'll see if i can figure out the ring,looks like a big mud ring.i looked around and found 4 inch covers that are used to hold ceiling fixtures that have the same ears with two screws that look just like yours but no 6 inch.maybe they used to use 6 inch back then.if you have 2 by 4's on both sides of the hole i would pick up a Westinghouse
Saf-T-Brace Support Fan Brace from home depot, it will expand till it snugs up to the joists and its fan rated so you can hang anything from it,then relace that drywall or use that medallion cover also sold at home depot. hope that helps

 

Was there a can light at this location before? It appears someone has jack legged it to accommodate a regular light fixture. Definitely needs to go. The wood has no place in an electrical set up. It was put there to hold the spanner bar in place.

 

Remove the metal can. Patch the hole. Cut a 4" hole and either install a new-work box with a support bar or a fan box. Do not use an old-work box with ears. The patch might not hold it.

Assuming unfinished attic above and a NM-b with ground supplying the square box: Turn the square box up and fasten to the top of a rafter. Remove the short BX cable. Run NM-b from the square box to your new ceiling box. Wire nut to the NM supply cable coming into the square box. You may have to install an NM clamp in the square box.

If the NM-b into the square box is long enough you can eliminate the square box and run it to the ceiling box.

 

I don't know for sure about the can light. Just speculation on my part. So how do I fix this? If I put in solid blocking to the trusses above that would definately support the weight of the light, but I would still have a wood element.

If I understood the previous posts correctly, the electrical is probably fine and adequately grounded to the box on the side. How do I correctly extend from the box on the side to the new fixture?

 

Rad111- No unfinished attic above - finished second floor so all work needs to be done from below.

 

You will have to remove the square box. If the NM-b supply to the square box isn't long enough you may have to move the box a few inches. You will need to install an old-work fan box that can be installed from below. I know you aren't installing a fan but a patch may not support a regular old work box.

 

Thanks for the advice. I think this is gtting beyond my abilities and will need to get some help with this.

 

that's bx flex cable and the ground is the metal casing itself as far as that ring i'm not sure but it doesn't look like its up to code,those pieces of wood is dangerous,the fixture could come down on your head or just yank the wires and cause a short,i'll see if i can figure out the ring,looks like a big mud ring.i looked around and found 4 inch covers that are used to hold ceiling fixtures that have the same ears with two screws that look just like yours but no 6 inch.maybe they used to use 6 inch back then.if you have 2 by 4's on both sides of the hole i would pick up a Westinghouse
Saf-T-Brace Support Fan Brace from home depot, it will expand till it snugs up to the joists and its fan rated so you can hang anything from it,then relace that drywall or use that medallion cover also sold at home depot. hope that helps
Last edited by jnjw2; Today at 06:29 PM.

 

The flex shown used to go from the square junction box to the rest of the recessed housing. Someone just deconstructed the recessed that was there and adapted it for the new fixture. It was not correct.

There are adapters made for this purpose.

 

The can light deconstruction was done years ago before I bought the house. I am assuming too much has been removed for an adapter to still work?

If I install the Westinghouse Saf-t-brace for support of the new fixture, is it okay to connect the new fixture to the flex cable that is currently there or does the existing wiring need to continue to the juction box that is part of the Westinghouse Saf-t-brace?

If it is ok to connect to the existing flex cable then I have the following questions:
1)The fixture comes with two black cables so I assume it doesn't matter which is connected to the existing black and which is connected to existing white in the ceiling.
2) what about the fixture ground cable? What do I connect it to? Someone previously said the metal sheathing on the flex cable was the ground.

I added a sketch to the photo section if it is of any use.
http://i1217.photobucket.com/albums/...111/Sketch.jpg

Thanks for everyone's responses so far!

 

To do this properly you would remove the cable from the square junction box and put it in the new box.

The fixture could be easy to reconstruct as long as no parts were damaged.

 

a bx connector connects to the end of that bx cable and then connects to the saf t brace box and your ground wire connects to the ground screw in the saf t brace box which makes the ground,i don't know about two hot wires in your fixture without testing it. i would just replace the 6 inch drywall section with a new piece if you can to get rid of that metal ring and big hole. then make a 4 inch hole for the new box. they make knockdown texture in a spray can that i use alot. its made by homax and some light spackling to fill around the new piece of drywall.

 

That would not be code compliant.The square box can not be buried. If you are adding a conventional box and patch it would be. You must remove the square box and use the supply cable to it.

Or use a can to standard adapter as suggested by PCBoss. Here is an example: The Can Converter Recessed Can Light Conversion Kit I can't say if necessary parts of the can light have been removed. If they just removed the trim it should work.

 

my bad forgot about the burying box code

 

Thanks for digging up that link Ray.