Adding an additional spotlight

[darrenh]

Hello all

I want to add an additonal spot light (halogen low voltage downlight) to an existing daisy-chained ring of the same lights.

The spot it needs to go on the ceiling sits 3 joists away from the current last light in the chain.

Does anyone have any insider tips into how i can avoid having to pull up the chip board floor (across the 3 joists) in the bedroom above to do this?

1) Can this be done from below?
2) if i did need to rip it the chipboard and go in from above, is there a way fo just taking a section out etc?

thanks

Darren

 

[Keith1978]

Best way is to lift the boards above and wire it in that way. Otherwise the only other option you have is to cut holes in the ceiling either side of each joist, wire in the additional downlights from below, screw the pieces of ceiling back in and then make good and re-dec the ceiling.

You could be lucky and find that you drill out your additional downlight hole and find that there are holes in the joists nearby which you can fish the extra wiring through, chances of this though are very slim.

Lifting the boards is your best option, unless you're good at making good holes.

 

[Keith1978]

Sorry forgot to answer the second question.

I've seen many chippies taking these floors up, the way they do it is with a skillsaw, set it so that it only cut's through the floorboard and not any pipework/cabling etc that runs through the joists (best to check first with a detector). Run the skillsaw halfway across the top of the joists, and cut out a trap so as when it comes to replacing the trap half of the joist is on show to support the piece of flooring that you cut out.