I would like to purchase 48" fluorescent light fixtures to mount on the walls or ceiling of my apartment, however the only fixtures i can find require wiring to electrical sockets. I would like to buy the fixtures then attach a plug and cord to the fixture as opposed to hardwiring them to the house. Is this feasible and how can i go about doing this?
Bathroom Sconce
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Sure easy way.
Buy an extension cord, 3 prong, in the color you want.
Cut off the female end , the one that you plug things into, not the end that plugs into the wall. Split the outside casing back about 5 inches, separate the wires from any fill material. You should have 1 black, 1 white and 1 green or bare wire.
Simply run the cord into the knock out hole in the new fixture,Or knock one out if not allready open, then either install a 3/8 nm wire clamp or tie a loop in the cord so it does not pull back out or strain the wires. Simply wire nut the same color wires inside the light with the ones in the cord. Wrap a small amount of electrical tape around the each joint so they will stay together. Plug it in and it will light up. All done.
its very easy.
just go to your hardware store and buy a male end to an extension cord. (i assume 3 prong, pos., neg., and ground)
they’re about 2 or 3 bucks
inside there should be 3 screws for your wires (or 2 if no ground on your fixture) white wire to silver screw, black/red wire to copper screw. the ground wire or green will screw into another ussually silver(or sometimes green) screw thats closer to the bottom of the plug.
dont worry if you get the wires crossed the worst that can happen is you will trip a circuit breaker, but once u get the thing apart it will all make sense.
I have one in the garage over the bench but it means that the cable hangs down to the wall socket and I doubt if you would like that
An electrician would do it quite cheap and it would last forever and you wouldn’t get electocuted its just not worth it doing it yourself
If you really insist on DIY you have to switch the power off then mark and drill holes to hole the light then you have to take the wall plug off and get some cable and you have to make a hole in the wall so that you can fix the plug on the wall
attatch the cable in the rpoper connections and feed the cable through the wall so you can retrieve from the plug attatch the cable to the plug and replace fixed the new plug to the wall you may have to drill and rawplug then screw the plug to the wall fix the light so the cable from the light is short enough not to hang down attatch a pin plug to the end plug it in and switch on if you blow a fuse you have wired it up wrong so power off and check the plugs
Now you can see what pitfalls you can get into by DIY its much easier to pay a proffessional electrician to fix it to the wall