Lighting Question, How to wire

[jeostang]

My new garage has one single bulb in the middle of the garage.

I want to put up 4 8ft flouresent lights. How to a piggy back off that one fixture?

THanks

 

[logical]

Just kill the power, get up in the attic and cut the wire where it goes into the box, mount a junction box within reach of the cut wire and connect it to your first new light wire. Then just go light to light with the rest. Get a solid cover plate and cover the old box from the garage side or rip it out, cover the hole and mud it flush.

 

[Der Bugmeister]

Make sure there's enough capacity left on the circuit to support the lights, too...

 

[Charles (in GA)]

Just kill the power, get up in the attic and cut the wire where it goes into the box, mount a junction box within reach of the cut wire and connect it to your first new light wire. Then just go light to light with the rest. Get a solid cover plate and cover the old box from the garage side or rip it out, cover the hole and mud it flush.

This works where the power first goes to the switch and then to the light fixture, but if the power is run to the fixture and the hot leg is then taken to the switch and back to the fixture, this will NOT work.

If you go into the existing box with a new wire and connect it to the switched hot and the netural and the ground going to the existing fixture, and take this new wire up and out of the box to your new fixtures, you cannot go wrong. Only caution here is to respect the limit on the max number of wires allowed in the box based on cubic inch capacity and wire sizes, per the code.

Charles