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ilyaz

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Want to replace the old wall light on the patio. The plate has two round what I think are screws of some type (shown by the red arrows in the photo) that I thought I need to remove to remove the plate and everything else. Tried turning them with a pair of pliers after spraying WD-40 on them but they would not budge. Am I doing something totally wrong? Or are they stuck because of old age and I need to use something more aggressive to remove them? Thx!

light.jpg
 
They are nut on a small bolt coming from the the straps that comes with the lamp, cut them off with hacksaw if nothing else works.
 
Those are the parts holding the lamp on. Use vice grips and twist them off. It's only an 8-32 screw. If they don't come loose they will twist off.
 
Now next question. I removed the plate and saw only two wires (so no ground I presume). Instructions for the replacement light show 3 wires. So I have 3 wires in the fixture to be connected with 2 coming out of the wall. The bracket that comes with it has a green-colored screw on it. Do I simply connect the ground wire of the fixture to that screw? Thx
 
Since your house has no ground wires the ground on the fixture should just coiled up and left. Connecting it to the screw on the bracket is fine.
 
I checked that bricks and mortar do not provide enough of a ground path to trip a GFCI, so,
if you have no ground and no GFCI protection for this lamp, IMHO there is another choice.

You can hook up a (make or buy) indicating LED that runs on 120v and pulls 10 mA or so, much like the LEDs that are in some GFCIs.

This red LED is wired between the ungrounded lamp housing and the neutral wire. Then, if the hot lead shorts to the lamp housing, the LED will light which indicates an unsafe condition. The LED is small enough that you can mount it almost anywhere near or on the lamp.

I could not find a downside to this idea. It works on paper but I've never done it.
 
Wuzzat? said:
I checked that bricks and mortar do not provide enough of a ground path to trip a GFCI, so,
if you have no ground and no GFCI protection for this lamp, IMHO there is another choice.

You can hook up a (make or buy) indicating LED that runs on 120v and pulls 10 mA or so, much like the LEDs that are in some GFCIs.

This red LED is wired between the ungrounded lamp housing and the neutral wire. Then, if the hot lead shorts to the lamp housing, the LED will light which indicates an unsafe condition. The LED is small enough that you can mount it almost anywhere near or on the lamp.

I could not find a downside to this idea. It works on paper but I've never done it.
Click to expand...

A GFCI does not require a ground to work. Only a Hot and a Common, Black and White.


The 4 th diagram down.
http://www.do-it-yourself-help.com/gfci_wiring_diagrams.html

If you only have a single box.
http://diy.stackexchange.com/questions/10087/how-do-i-wire-a-gfci-switch-combo
 
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