So with this project its going to be a 3 part, 3 different day project, yesterday was the first day and I did part 1, which was the lighting and outlets in the laundry room. There originally was only 3 in-ceiling lights and 1 in-ceiling outlet.
With this being a laundry room, the more light the better and the lack of outlets makes it difficult to power appliances like the washer and freezer, not to mention the occasional shop vac and dehumidifier. Also besides the lack of lights and outlets, the switching on the lights was kinda crazy. The switch that was upstairs at the top of the step going to the landing for the side door turn on the light above the side door, the one light in the laundry room above the washer and one light in the main basement area. The other lights in the laundry area were pull chain. So what I decided to do was put a new switch box at the top of the basement stairs, in the box would be a switch that would control the entire laundry room lighting and then a 3 way switch that would control the main basement area lights and then another 3 way switch in the main basement area, This way we would not have to run all the way into the main basement area to turn off the lights if someone left them on.
So I started off by marking around the old work 2 gang box and starting to use a jigsaw to cut the hole out, oh course this was a pain because of the lath and plaster walls. Once the hole was cut I fished up the 2 romex lines, a single 14-2 cable for the lights in the laundry room and the other being a 14-3 for the 3 way lighting in the main basement, and got them installed in the box and the box secured in the wall.
Because of the plaster chipping while sawing Ill have to use some putty to fill in and paint around the box so it wont look awful.
So the next thing I did was planned where the new lights were going to be and nailed the new boxes up. We decided to go with 6 lights versus the 3 there were. Due to not wanting to completely deal with and figure out how, where and to what the old wires were going to and from I left the previous light boxes up and removed the light sockets and installed blanks. And since the previous light already had their own circuit in the breaker panel I decided to pull the power from the far and first old light box.
So now that the plan was figured out and boxes mounted I started running the wire to the boxes and got it secured with plastic staples.
So with all the wires ran and secured I got the switches wired in and all the lights into the places as well. After that was done I turned off the breaker for the old lights and ran the power source cable to that box and got it wired in. I then turned the beaker back on and we had light!
Well now that the lights were on and done, I got started on the outlets, the one outlet that there was also was on a dedicated circuit, so I turned off that circuit at the breaker and accessed the existing box, removed the outlet and removed the romex from that box. I then mounted a handy box near the old box and took the source romex into that box. I then mounted a 4" deep metal box onto the wall using Tapcon anchors. The next part was the true test to see what I remember from my electrician days, bending the conduit for the runs to the box. Amazingly I was able to bend the box offsets perfectly and didn't have to have a second attempt. Once those were secured into place with straps, I ran the wire into the conduit and also into the junction box. I then installed a GFCI outlet here since its for the washer and close to the utility sink. I then wired the outgoing romex into the load side of the GFCI to protect the other 2 outlets I was going to install.
After that one was done I mounted another junction box and outlet box for the next receptacle, I again needed a piece of conduit bent, this time I needed to box offsets, one on each end. Somehow again I manged to do this the right way the first time so I got that into place and got it wired up. And again I ran the romex down the way to the final outlet, this one is for the freezer, I again got the box mounted, conduit bent and outlet wired in. I powered on the breaker and tested the outlets and made sure the GFCI was working and protecting properly and all was good!
Well the next part of the project will be the main basement area followed by the 2 sides back rooms, will start that here soon and will post updates when they occur!
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