house design electrical wiring

hey there, i’m jeff patterson with homerepair tutor. and i don’t usually wear sunglasses because it’s not normally sunny in pittsburg,but it is today. hey, i’m going to show you how to installoutdoor landscape lighting. so in this video, we’re going to be installing outdoor landscapelighting—low voltage like this right here—and if this is something you need to do becauseyour steps or your outdoor space is not well-lit, check out this video. so let’s get started.for this project, i chose a 200-watt power pack, and you’ll also figure out what sizepower pack to use for your landscape lighting. and the reason i chose this size is becausei’m going to be installing a large floodlight, and the output of that is about 50w. i’malso going to be putting in 4 path lights,

and each one of these path lights, the outputis 11w. so 11 x 4 = 44w + 50w for the floodlight, that’s 94w, and that’s well within therange of the power pack that i’m holding right here. so 94w is less than 200w, so it’sgood. these power packs, they’ve got terminalson the bottom, and that’s where you will install the wiring.in this case, i need to use a hammer drill, like this one here, and set it to the hammersetting because i need to drill 2 holes into the mortar using the tapcon drill bit. andthe tapcon drill bit comes with tapcons. and the distance between the 2 holes in the powerpack is about 4”. now it’s much easier to drill into mortarthan brick. place a mark on the mortar, then

measure over the 4” because that correspondswith the holes on the back of the power pack. now in this case, i’m using tapcons. soa blue tapcon there. and i’m putting the drill bit in, and i’m setting the depthof the hammer drill so that it stops about â¼â€ beyond the total length of that tapcon.so i’m drilling 2 holes in. i’m going to stop when the hammer drill stops at thedepth that i need. now i like using a driver like this one todrive the blue tapcon screw into the mortar. and these blue tapcons are perfect for thisproject, that are meant for drilling into cement or mortar, or brick. so i recommendthem if you’ve got a brick siding like i do here. and then you just mount the powerpack.

i chose 12/2 low voltage wiring for this projectto prevent voltage drops. voltage drops cause your lights to dim. i just wanted to avoidthat altogether. so what you’ll do is dig a trench from thepower pack to your first light. and you can use either half-moon edger like i’m usinghere or a spade shovel to dig about 1/6” trench for that wiring. you’ll splice thewire so that it separates by about 2”. and then you’ll strip off the insulation aboutâ¾â€ of the insulation. you’ll place the bare copper wire underneaththe silver terminal. spin the wire using lineman’s pliers. and then place the bare copper wireunder the terminal screw and make sure that that insulation does not touch the silverterminals.

bury the wire leading from the power packto your first light, and then just place dirt over it. it’s that simple.the first light i’m installing is this large floodlight because it projects light up ontothe house and makes the house look awesome at night. the lights have these cable-to-fixture connectors—there’s a top cap to them, there’s a base like this one here,and then there’s a contact. there are 2 contacts that pierce the wire.so what you’ll have to do is slide the wire into the base of the cable-to-fixture connector.you want to slide it in juts like this so that it’s held flush into the bottom ofthe base because what’ll happen is that you’ll screw down the top that has thosewire contacts on them. those contacts will

pierce the cable and allow electricity toflow to the light. so just double-check that electricity is flowing to the light beforeyou move onto your next light fixture. run the cable to the next wire fixture, anddo the exact same thing. connect the wire to the cable-to-fixture connector. and justdouble-check that the lights work. if you have problems tightening the top ofthe cable-to-fixture connector, you can use a hex wrench to tighten it down.so here’s the end result. here’s what my steps look like at dusk. pretty sweet,right? and you can get the same result using these lights.at the end, you’ll have to bury or loop the cable back to the power pack. now in thiscase, i just put tape at the end of the wire

and buried it.well there you have it. that’s how you can go about installing outdoor landscape lighting.i hope that you like this video. if you did, give it a click on the thumbs up button overon youtube. that way somebody else can see it and benefit from the video. and if youhaven’t already done so, you can also click on the subscribe button. that way, you’llget my videos every single friday. that’s when a new one comes out especially for you.and i love doing this stuff. i love diy. so check out the subscribe button because itmight help you out with the projects you have down the road.all right. thanks again. take care. i hope you have a great day. see you soon.

Tweet

Subscribe to receive free email updates: