Hey everyone,

We had two exterior lights that began flickering horribly last week so we pulled them off the wall and found that they had been basically rewired and repaired at some point prior to buying the house. We trashed them and my wife ordered these (https://www.lowes.com/pd/Millennium-...ght/1000861602).

While we were in the process, we saw that there were no junction boxes and it looks like whoever put the originals up, tried to cut out a rectangle with a hole saw in one of the columns. Ultimately, the original lights were both mounted directly to the columns themselves. I'm debating what to do - use a shallow pan surface mount, cut out an old work round box, or use a rectangle since the hole is already there. These lights weigh about 5-6 pounds each so they aren't overly heavy.

Any thoughts on what my best route is based on the pictures? For whatever reason, when I uploaded them they rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.

Appreciate the help.

 

For the first one, I'd probably pop in an old (rectangular) work box. The second pic, probably match it. Or a pancake box would be fine too, but I would try to seal the siding - I don't like the idea of that much open siding for weather and bugs to get into.

You're definitely on the right track! It doesn't really matter what goes there as long as there is an actual box!