Easy Outdoor Light Fixture Update - 20 Minute DIY Upgrade

hi there my name is nils from learn to

diy and in this video we're going to be

showing you how to take your old outside

or exterior lights and swap them out for

something new and fresh in a few easy

steps

now first things first just like with

any project dealing with electricity we

want to head to the circuit breaker box

and make sure to flip off the circuit

that controls this particular fixture

and those around it

now that the power is off we should

actually be able to complete pretty much

this entire project in a fairly short

amount of time and with no tools other

than a screwdriver so the first thing

we'll do is remove this and typically

you're going to have a couple of little

screws like this and we can pull those

off and those are the nuts that hold the

fixture onto the posts so i've got one

back here

and it's already getting loose

there we go

and then the other

on the opposite side

oh i dropped it

all right so there we go

pretty simple

now what i'll do is expose the actual

wiring here so i've got my white wires

which are the neutrals

and then back here i've got the blacks

which are the positives

and then the bare wires are the grounds

so i'm just going to unthread this

each one of these

i'm going to save these wire caps

because we'll

potentially reuse them usually the new

light fixture will come with these but i

kind of like this style with the little

wing nuts

so we're gonna

unthread

the wires that we need

from here

there we go

there's our neutral

and our positive

and our ground is pretty uh

wound up here

all right out goes the old light fixture

just like that

now what you find back here will

definitely vary

based on your home and your fixtures so

if you do not have a clearly evident

black and white wire with the ground

you're going to want to make sure to

identify that because you will need that

to hook up your new lights you can

usually take a look at what you removed

from the old light fixture and hook it

up the same way

now these little bars here are going to

vary from house to house and fixture to

fixture you may have something like this

and if you do most new fixtures are

going to be able to leverage something

like that so i actually don't even need

to remove that i can leave that in place

just like it is but if you don't have

that your new fixture should come with

something like this a plate where you

can fasten it to the junction box using

a couple of screws and usually the

screws will come with it so you're just

going to fasten the screws or the plate

right on here with the screws

that go in the outside of the junction

box and that will give you everything

you need to then thread your posts for

your new fixture right through just like

that and again just because this one's

already done in my case i won't bother

doing that i'm just going to use what's

already there

now that i've taken my new fixture out

of the box the first thing i'm going to

do is connect the ground the ground will

often serve as kind of an anchoring

point for this so just like we saw how

it was connected before i'm going to

wrap it up here really good

all right so now i can take one of my

wire caps and fasten that on there

and next we're just going to reconnect

the positive and the neutrals

all right so i'm going to take my

neutrals the white we'll start there

and connect that in here

now our goal here is to make sure we

have a good secure

connection between the copper wires and

the new wire that i'm putting on here

so what i'll do is i'll fasten that on

as best i can

and then we'll give it a good snug or a

good tug sorry

to make sure it fits in there really

well there we go and it's not going

anywhere

then i'll do the same thing with the

positive wires

make sure that's on there really well

okay

and that's actually most of the work i'm

now going to push

these wires back into the junction box

so that they're out of the way

and then i'll do the same thing with the

neutral or sorry the ground

it should be all set there

and then it's just a matter

of fitting

my posts through

taking my wire caps or sorry the post

nuts

threading those on

there's one

a little more

and two

once i get this on here

i want to make sure that's really nice

and

now there we go it's already in place

that was actually really simple just

took a few minutes now every install is

going to be a little bit different so if

yours doesn't go quite that smoothly or

things aren't set up just the same way

don't get frustrated just identify that

you've got your positive and your

neutral and your ground to connect and

then you've got to make sure you have a

secure place to connect the actual

fixture to the posts coming out of the

junction box if you can get those few

things worked out then you'll be able to

swap it out for something nice and new

next up i'm going to take my smart bulb

the same one i had in my last fixture

put this in this is a smart bulb that

actually changes colors and it connects

to wi-fi itself and so i can either use

wi-fi light switches or i can use this

connected directly to wi-fi to change

the color of the bulbs which is pretty

fun so i use this for christmas and

change it red and for halloween i'll

make them purple and green and things

like that now if you like this fixture

the light bulbs that we're using or any

of the tools that you've seen here

you're welcome to take a look at the

links in the description below where you

can purchase all of those yourself now

we just need to flip the switch back and

turn the lights on and let's see how

they look

alright so now we've got power here

everything's working as it should i can

use my phone to control the color and

brightness

thanks to the smart bulb and again you

can see links for those in the

description below and we can dim that

down

like so

or just go back and say let's just make

it totally white

there we go

and that's it hopefully you found these

steps helpful in putting on your

exterior light fixtures if you have

questions or anything feel free to leave

those in the comments below and i and

the others on here will do our best to

take a look and help you out now if you

want to take this to the next level some

of the other cool things you can check

out are how to install smart or wi-fi

light switches so that you can control

all of this automatically for example

one of the things i like to do is say

when the sun comes up turn this outside

light off when the sun goes down turn it

on and it keeps track of the sunrise and

sunset each day and just does that

automatically for me you can do that

either through the smart wi-fi bulb or

through the smart wi-fi light switch

which allows you to use any bulb that

you desire so be sure to check out my

videos on installing both a single pole

and a three-way light switch as well as

how to learn more about smart homes in

general some of the devices

cameras bulbs switches and other things

that i found most useful for me