Basic wiring question for a newbie

12 years ago

I have a room that I am converting to a baby room. The light switch is currently connected to an outlet (just the upper side of the outlet, the lower is always on). Other than that, the ceiling has no wiring in place for a light fixture.

My wife and I would like to add some recessed lights. Without going into anymore details. Generally speaking, will I be able to "tap into" the wire from the switch and connect them to 4 new recessed lights?

Please excuse my lack of terminology in this post. Any help is greatly appreciated!

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Comments (5)

btharmy
12 years ago
It depends how the switch is wired in relation to the receptacle and if you still want half of the receptacle to be coontrolled by the switch.
thetaxnerd
Original Author
12 years ago
Ideally, I will want the outlet (receptacle?) always "on", with no relation to the switch anymore. I will only want the switch to control the recessed lights.
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ionized_gw
12 years ago
The cost of this will depend mainly on how good access is to the space above the ceiling. That will determine how easily luminaires can be physically installed and how easily cable can be run to them and the switch.

Switches can be wired in two basic ways. In one way power is fed through the switch on the way to the luminaire or outlet. In the other way the power goes to the luminaire or outlet and a loop goes from there to the switch. In more recent construction, you find all wires, hot, neutral and ground, going to the switch because they are needed for sensor, timer switches and new requirements.

It is entirely possible that both switched and unswitched conductors in the outlet junction box run through the light switch junction box. It is also possible that only a loop is run between them. It just depends on the electrician's approach to things and what else is involved with that circuit.
kevin1900
12 years ago
So I think what ionized is saying, is that it also might depend on what kind of access exists both to bring power to either the switch or the location of the lights, plus access from the switch to the lights. Where there's a will there's a way, especially if you're planning to paint or wallpaper the room, and a little plaster work is not a big deal.
Ron Natalie
12 years ago
The other option is to just add another switch for the recessed light and leave the one controlling the receptacle (anything that consumes electricity in the room is an outlet, the think you plug cords into is a receptacle). If you can fish wires to the recessed cans themselves, getting the wire to a switch (either the same one or a new one) is not going to be particularly harder.

If half the duplex receptacle is unswitched, it's trivial to change both sides to be unswitched. Note that you can only do this if you add other lighting to the room (as you propose) otherwise it isn't code compliant.