Electrical Work and Lighting Tips

With planning, you can have light for a Ping-pong game, light for TV viewing, general decorative illumination, or all three!

According to the specialists in this field, there are three main types of light: work light, general illumination or fill light, and effect light. Let's see how this idea fits in with your scheme of things. Despite the name,electric work lights is simply illumination that is directed to cover a specific area at a usable intensity. To take the edge off the term, you use work light for card playing, reading, sewing, shaving, etc. The actual source can take one of several forms. You can use built-in spotlights mounted in the walls or ceilings; you can use many types of lamps, table lights or hanging lights. For the most part, you should have reflectors to beam the light exactly where you want it.

General illumination adds a feeling of warmth to the room, softens the shadows and provides enough light for such delights as conversation, dining, charades or other noncritical occupa­tions. Usually this type of light is indirect and the source is hidden. Most frequently, it takes the form of cove or cornice lighting with the illumination reflected down from the ceiling. Ordinary table or floor lamps can »lso give this effect if they have a diffuser to soften the illumination or if they are beamed to send the light ceilingward.

Desirable features such as cove lighting, spot over serving counter, outlets for table lamp and TV can be included in your wiring plan. Make the lighting adjustable by using dual fixtures or dimmers.

Effect light is in a category all by itself. It's just light that you use in a decorative way as you would curtains, drapes, pic­tures on the wall and the like. For example, one highly effective technique is to put soft diffused light behind a translucent screen. For dramatic emphasis, a lot of people like to have a spotlight shining down on a painting or an unusual house plant so they have to involve abit of electric work..

Occasionally, you may want to toss all the established rules out the window. If you're converting the basement into a game room, for example, there may be times when you will want to have the en­tire area brilliantly illuminated. Maybe there's a Ping-pong tournament going on at one end of the room, a hot game of gin rummy at the other, and an exhibition of square knot tying taking up the remaining space.

Now let's take a look at the reverse side of this picture. Suppose you will use the room occasionally for TV viewing. In this case, you should have some very soft gen­eral illumination in the room. You want enough light to rest your eyes, but not so much that it washes out the picture on the Screen.

A wide variety of lighting fixtures are avail­able to provide work, general or effect light.

Once various boxes are in place, drill holes through the studs to run BX cable (above, right).

String cable (BX or nonmetallic) through studs and connect to junction, light and outlet boxes.

Locale switch and outlet boxes near stud and mount by simply nailing through projecting flange.

Slip bushing and BX clamp over end of cable and slip into box. A nut holds the cable inside box.

Both of these situations can be solved with the same procedure. Make the light intensity adjustable. Plan to use three-way bulbs as much as possible. If this doesn't electric work doesnt work out, think about using dual fixtures. Click on one bulb for medium light, use both when you want full illumi­nation. Dimmers, too, can solve the prob­lem.

Plan Your Lighting

In any event, it's important that you plan your lighting and electrical outlets at this point. It's a cinch to add outlets, switches and wires while the walls are still open. As a matter of fact, each switch or out­let that you install should take only about 20 minutes to connect. Later, when you have the walls completely covered and you have to fish wire down inside them, the exact same job might take the better part of a day.

As a general rule of thumb, any wall space that extends 3 ft. or more should have an outlet. On long walls, the outlets should be spaced about 4 ft. apart. Plan stairway lighting carefully. If your attic or basement isn't already equipped in this manner, now is the time to add a three-way switch so you can control the light from either the top or bottom of the stairs. Also, plan to position a switch at the door­way of the room so you can have some light without stumbling halfway across to turn it on. If the room also serves as a passageway or access to another area of the house, it's a good idea to install a three-way switch at each entranceway so you can control the light as you go.

Electrical How-To

In the author's opinion electric work, (at least the simple home variety) falls into the category of semiskilled labor. It's not hard work and you'll find the specific how-to for the job in these pages. So, if you're just going to add a few outlets and switches, you have the makings of a fine do-it-yourself job.

On the other hand, if you plan to include cooking facilities (plus heavy duty wires for this) or add so many lights that your present electric circuit can't handle the load, you ought to consider having a pro­fessional electrician do the job. Unless you have the technical knowledge neces­sary (and if this is the case you can skip this chapter), you should probably not con­sider installing a new fuse box or even adding extra circuits to existing ones.

Here's the procedure for wiring up some fixtures, switches and outlets. There are two main types o/ wire used in homes. The first is known as nonmetallic sheathed cable. The two or three wires inside are covered with rubber or plastic insulation plus a wrapping of specially treated paper. The whole bundle is held together by a very heavy, coated-fabric covering.

Metallic sheathed cable (let's call it BX) is much the same except that in place of the fabric outer covering it has a spiral metal armor. There's an easy way to make a choice between the two. Take a look at the rest of the wiring in your house and con­tinue on with whatever type of cable has already been used.

To make connections, twiit wires together and nip orf to V2 in. Screw on solderless connector.

Standard light switch hookup is shown below. Always break black wire ior switch; never white. "Three-way" letup gives two-position light con­trol. Use two throe-way switches, three-wire cable.

Boxes

The metal boxes that contain switches, outlets and the like come in several differ­ent varieties; it's just a matter of selecting the right one for the job. First of all, the entire line is available for flush mounting or surface mounting. If you're going to sink the boxes into the walls so that just the front cover is visible, specify flush mounting. If the whole rig is going to be exposed right out on the face of the wall, what you want are surface boxes. Switches and outlets take a rectangular box, fixtures usually go into a box that's a little larger and octagonally shaped. Hanging fixtures take a ceiling box. This is quite a bit shal­lower, usually rouijd, and has a stud fas­tened into the center to support the light.

Finally, there's a junction box. Care­fully set down in the regulations of the National Electric Code is the rule that all connections of cable must be made inside a box. Whenever you bring several runs of cable together, feed them all into a junction box. Inside the box you can make all necessary connections. There's one more rule concerning these. All junction boxes must have removable covers that are ac­cessible. Better plan to locate junction boxes in a closet or in some other out-of-the-way spot because they definitely don't add to the decorative value of a room.

Electric work people follow a pretty standard layout for installing boxes. According to their figures, wall fixtures (for bracket lights, etc.) are usually located 66-72 in. up from the floor. Wall switches are usual­ly 60 in. above the floor and outlets for lamps, vacuum cleaners and electric trains are either centered in the baseboard or mounted in the wall about 12 in. above the floor. Actually all this is pretty flexible. If for any reason a different height seems more appealing, there's no reason why you shouldn't humor yourself.

As the first phase of the actual installa­tion, put up the various boxes. Most of the wall mounting types are available with a projecting flange that you can simply nail to the face of the stud. As you can see, it makes life a good deal easier if you plan all outlets so that they're located right next to a stud. Ceiling boxes either screw to the underside of a joist overhead or else hook onto a couple of metal straps that you fasten in between two joists.

Once all the boxes are in place, drill holes through the studs so that you can run the cable. An electric hand drill is your best bet here. Make the hole an easy sliding fit for the cable.

Most cable is sold in a large roll and there's a slight trick to unwinding it with­out entangling yourself like a sturgeon in a net. The secret is simple. Pull the stuff out from the center of the coil instead of unwinding it from the edge. Measure the length of one run between boxes and cut a hunk of cable to this measurement. Be sure to allow an extra 6 in. at each end and don't figure on stretching the cable taut. It should be a nice, slack, easy span. Feed the cable through the holes and leave it dangling at each end while you go about the next job.

Back to the boxes. All of them are sup­plied with knockouts (circles of metal that have been partially punched out). To re­move one completely, place a screw driver against it and give it a clong with a ham­mer. The circle then will bend inward. Grab it with pliers, twist it back and forth until it breaks loose. You'll wind up with a neat round hole in the side of the box.

Installing BX Cable

To expose the wires inside the BX cable, rest it on a sturdy wooden support such as a sawhorse. With a hack saw, make a cut about 6 in. from the end. Saw at a 35-degree angle to the cable and cut only through part of one spiral. The idea is to slice through the center of the spiral and slightly nick the metal on either side. Just be very careful that you don't chew into the wires inside. Hold the BX with one hand on either side of the cut and twist it back and forth. The armored section will snap and you can slide the short end off. Unwrap the paper covering to expose the two wires inside.

The cut edges of the BX armor are quite sharp and could slice through the insula­tion to short the wires underneath. A little fiber bushing is designed to prevent this disaster (bushings are usually supplied along with the BX).  Slide a bushing over the wire and push it inside the armor to cover the sharp edges.

Surface wiring can be done with Electroitrip. In addition to wire, junction!, outlets, etc.. are told.

BX clamps hold the cable to the box. Slide a clamp over the end of the wire. The armor should slip inside to a depth of about 1 in. Tighten the setscrew in the side of the clamp to hold the cable firmly. The other end of the clamp has an external thread. Slip this through the knockout hole. Inside the box, screw on a large nut that comes with the clamp. The nut has ridges in the sides of it. Place the screw driver in one of these grooves and hit it with a hammer to tighten the nut. Some boxes have built-in clamps for this job and are a little easier to use. Just slip the length of BX in under the clamp and tighten down the setscrew.

The procedure for nonmetallic cable is pretty much the same. Instead of a hack saw, use a sharp knife to cut through the outer covering and expose the severed wires. The clamps that hold this cable to the box are slightly different, so make sure you get the right type. Using them is just a matter of tightening down screws to clamp the wire.

All nonmetallic cables have a bonding wire in them. This is a hunk of fairly stiff wire just under the outer covering. At­tach this wire to any setscrew in the box. Quite frequently, BX cable will have the same bonding wire. Here's how to handle it. After you've cut through the armor, snip off all but 2 in. of the bonding wire and bend it back. When you slide the BX into the clamp, the wire will be secured between the armor and the inside of the clamp.

How come this extra wire? It's a safety precaution to make sure that all the boxes are joined in a continuous string and can be grounded.

Making Connections

To connect wires (and as you recall this should only be done inside boxes) use solderless connectors. These plastic or porcelain gadgets are made with an inside tapered thread. Hold the bare ends of two wires side by side and twist them together with a pair of pliers. Snip off all but about. Vz in. of the joint and simply screw a con­nector onto the wires. No further insula­tion is needed.

There are two simple rules for electric wiring that will keep you out of trouble.

1.  White wires only connect to white wires: black wires only connect to black wires.

2.  Whenever a wire must be broken (cut apart so that a switch can be in­stalled) it is always the black wire. The white wire is never, never broken for this purpose.

Now that we have that out of the way, let's complicate the situation a little. Some types of cable have three wires in them. White, black, and red. You use this type when a light is to be controlled by two switches, such as a

Photo below shows large cutout for dimmer. Note BX clamps, held with setscrews, and nut threads.

bulb that has a switch at the top of the stairs and another at the bottom. Don't fret too much over this sit­uation. Stick to the rules, and follow the wiring diagrams you'll find in this chapter. No trouble will follow.

Sockets, outlets and switches have set-screws mounted on them so that you can connect the wires. Take a good look at the setscrews and you'll notice that they are of different colors. The white wire should connect to the nickel colored setscrew, the black wire to the brass colored setscrew.

A couple of new ideas have crept into the electric wiring field. As you probably recall, for a good many years, the electric appliance companies have been hollering at the public not to tack extension cords to the baseboard. But everybody did. Operating on the theory, "if you can't lick em join em,' several manufacturers have finally come out with a new type of exten­sion cord that's designed to be nailed right to the baseboard. One of these is called Qectrostrip. This stuff looks like a flat molding, but it has a couple of wires con­cealed inside.

Rheostat, the heart of light dimmer, is installed. Directions with unit give you the wiring details.

Use standard method for connecting wires. Twist, clip, cover with tape or solderless connectors.

Individual outlets are separate affairs that can be twisted into position anywhere along the run of molding. They automatically make contact with the wires inside.

The length of this special wire and a handful of the fittings (end caps, angles, feed-ins, etc.) designed to go with it are all the material you need to completely rim a room with new outlets. This is surface wiring, of course. It can be painted to match the baseboard, however, and is rel­atively inconspicuous. If you want to tuck wires into the wall, stick to the materials and methods already noted.

Dimmers

Also new is a light control (called dim­mers in some neighborhoods) put out by Luxtrol. By simply turning a dial on the wall, you can vary the intensity of any lights that are on the circuit. If you use a large enough control, you can shift the over-all light level of an entire room from dim to brilliant. In most applications the cove lights, the cornice lights, or any other indirect illumination is connected to this gismo. You can crank it all the way down for comfortable TV viewing, or swing it up full force if you're having exhibition roller hockey in the recreation room. Installing one of these devices is not much more dif­ficult than putting in an ordinary light switch its only electric work. You're just dealing with a bigger box and a couple extra connections. For the complete how-to, follow the sequence photos provided here.

Light creates the decor in this basement room with built-in shadowboxes and adjustable light control.

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