Our old four-bulb florescent fixture was looking shabby and the the plastic cover broke. On uninstalling it - I see there are only two wires available. But when I bought the new fixture they make a point of saying that you need to have a ground. The warn otherwise the light not come on predictably or some other issue. With a kitchen ceiling light like this - what are my real risks of just using the two existing wires positive and neg and forgoing the ground? Worked fine with the old fixture for the last 14 years.
2006-06-25
12:35:36
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3 answers
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asked by
HomeSweetSiliconValley
4
in
Home & Garden
➔ Do It Yourself (DIY)
Thanks for the advice so far. I have the thing mounted. There's a green "grounding screw" in the fixture and I guess I'm supposed to put the a grounding wire to it. Only there's no grounding wire. Also in the instructions is says black should go to black and white to white. But this was put in ages ago and it's just old black wire - both + and -.
2006-06-25
13:35:47 ·
update #1
I ran out and got some electrical tape as the old stuff is so old it's brittle and flaking. But how do I tell if I have the polarity right? And should I just run a wire that touches say the electrical box out of which + and - hang down..and connect that to the green screw?
2006-06-25
14:16:36 ·
update #2
Well it's working! Looking closer at the old wires I one of them had faded old white paint on it and went for it to be the white. Sho-nuf. I put a wire on the green grounding screw and grounded that best I could. I will be very careful doing any maintenance on it in the future in any case having heard about the voltage potential and my amature status in all this.
2006-06-25
15:38:37 ·
update #3