Ron Hazelton

How to Install Motion-Activated Outdoor Lights

Electrical & Lighting

Home Automation

Outdoor Lighting

HOUSE DOCTOR TRANSCRIPT

HD-008 “MOTION ACTIVATED OUTDOOR LIGHT” from episode 613

RON:

So, what's the story on these?

BOB:

Well, I bought these for my wife about three years ago for her birthday present, and then the following year I said that I'd install them for her birthday present, and as of yet I haven't installed them…

RON:

They’re still in your hands.

BOB:

Yes, yes. So, I'd like some help.

RON:

All right. So, where are you going to put them?

BOB:

On each side of the garage, one on each side of the garage. And we were looking at it, and we thought that right about here would be nice.

RON:

Well, this is Bob, and this is the case of the three-year-old birthday gift.

All right, let's start by finding the power source inside the garage. Do you want to show me where the nearest outlet is?

BOB:

Sure. It's right over this way.

The power's right over here…

RON:

Oh, good. This has got a GFCI, a ground fault circuit interrupter, already installed here. So, that means any wiring that we put downstream of this will be protected by the same GFCI. I like that, since the lights are outside.

Okay. Well, here's what I'm going to propose. I think we're going to take the wiring from this box down this wall here. Now, this is the inside of the wall where we're going to mount the first light, right up here. So, we'll go up this wall, put a second box here, go through the wall. That'll give us our power for the first light. Then across the top of the garage door over on this side, and we'll go through the wall over there for the second one. All right?

That's just about in the center of this wall. Okay, Bob, take a look here. How's that look for height?

BOB:

Good.

RON:

All right, now what we're going to do to begin is take a three-quarter inch carbide bit. I'm going to drill through this stucco until I get down to the sheathing below, and then we'll change bits to a wood bit.

Well, I've changed bits now to an electrician's bellhanger bit. I'm going to go all the way through the inside wall right now, and we'll know exactly where this wire will be coming out of the inside.

This is home improvement. We came right through this brace right here. So, Bob, come here a second, will you?

Take that saw, will you, and cut this off right here at the front of the shelf, and while you're at it, cut this one off down here so we can get a nice clean run for that conduit.

BOB:

Okay.

RON:

That's just the electrical box that we're going to be installing in the outside wall here. Now, I'm going to place this right over the center of that hole. I made a couple of reference marks earlier so that I know where the center is.

And then just put a level on here and make sure that this is, in fact, correct. Now take a pen, I'm going to trace the outside of this box like so, and in a moment here we're going to cut this out.

To cut the opening for the box, we'll start by drilling a series of small holes around the perimeter on that line that we just drew. And then, taking a cold chisel, we'll break away the stucco in between and remove the large chunks.

I'm removing the rear knockout in the box that we're going to be using here. Now, this is called a cut-in box. Take a look at how this works. You see there are a couple of flaps on the side right here? Well, when this goes in the wall, these flaps sort of flip out and they grip the box on the rear side of the wall. To install this, we want to push these up and fold them in like this to get them out of the way…

There we go. Then we slip the box in just like so, and once it's in position back here, then I'm going to reach inside and flip those wings, if you want to call them that, out, and then we'll tighten this up, and as I do, then they will grip on the back side of the stucco right here.

Now, I've turned the power off on this circuit, and we're moving the cover plate right here. We're going to be extending this wiring using the same kind of thin-wall metallic conduit that we have right here, sometimes called EMT, electromechanical tubing, and so let's get this out of our way and start by taking a screwdriver and placing it up against this knockout right here.

We'll give the screwdriver a couple of taps with a hammer, just knock that through, grab it with a pair of pliers, and twist it off. Now, this is an offset connector, just like we've used up here on the top. The reason is this allows the conduit to run flush with the wall here. You can also accomplish the same thing by bending the tubing like we did over on this side. Let's slip this in here, put the lock nut on, and tighten it up.

The next step is to hook a long piece of conduit, like this one right here, into that connector we just put into the box. However, when we get down here to this corner, we've got to make a bend. Now, there are a couple of ways to do that. One is to use a pipe bender, like this one right here, and the way this works is you simply slip it over a piece of pipe, place it on the floor, put your foot on this side, and bend this up until you've got a 90 degree angle on the pipe, just like that. Okay, and you can just remove this, and this then would go right over here, and it would fit in the corner just like this.

Now, if you don't have a pipe bender and you don't want to buy one, you can get these pre-bent angles. They attach to the straight runs using these set screw couplings. One side goes on the angle, one goes on the straight piece, and you just tighten the set screws like this.

Now, EMT needs to be installed or should be installed level, so let's see how we're doing here… Bob, bring it up a little bit more, a little more. Okay, good. Hold it right there…and it should be secured within three feet of every box.

This is a ball stud right here, I marked that earlier. These are single wing clips right here, and we'll just use a screw long enough to get through the sheet rock into the wood and attach it.

Now, the next step is to install a junction box right up here on the wall, just opposite that box outside. I've already removed the rear knockout in the box, and what I'm going to do next is take a connector. This is a standard connector they usually use for connecting conduit to these boxes, and we'll put the retaining ring on the inside. Just tighten this up with a pair of pliers, and then a short piece of conduit that I've cut right here. And then another connector on the other end. I'm going to tighten up these set screws here so it holds everything in place. There we go.

Now, I'm going to take this box with this short piece of conduit on the back and push it through this hole so that the end of it goes into the back of the box on the outside. I'm going to use this retaining ring or lock nut to secure that short piece of conduit to the inside of this exterior box.

Now, I'm left with about a quarter of an inch gap here between the edge of the box and the stucco, and because the box is only protected by this overhang, I'm going to seal that up using some stucco patch. This is a powder that I mix with water. I'm just going to push this in here with a putty knife and give ourselves a nice, tight and hopefully watertight fit.

I've added a couple of offset connectors here, and I've also bent a piece of pipe to go from down here up to that box. Let's put a set screw coupling on here. Slide that in there. Slide the coupling onto our 90-degree angle here. There we go, and tighten up our set screws.

Now, using these same fittings and bending technique, we'll extend the conduit to the other side of the garage door.

We've installed all the conduit and boxes that we need for our new circuit from here all the way out to the front of the house and over the garage door. Now, we do have one problem here, and that is we need some way to turn these lights on and off manually, even though these lights have automatic motion detectors in them, you'll still want to be able to turn them on with a switch if you need to. So while we could put that switch anywhere in that line that we just put in, Bob feels it would be much more convenient to have it back here next to this switch, which controls the light outside this door.

So what we're going to do is we're going to install a second box right here, put the switch in that. But to do that, I'm going to have to disassemble some of this wiring, and we have turned the power off. Make sure that there's nothing here. So let's start by removing this cover plate.

Well, I've removed the switch and disconnected most of the wires, in fact, all of the wires. I've also loosened the screws that are holding in this box here. Let's pull this off now. There we go. I'm just going to pull this piece of conduit loose from the box on the other end.

There we go. Loosen the screw there. The box comes off. I'm just going to slide this right off the wires. There we go. Excellent.

Now, here's our new switch box. It's going to go right here. I've already put a connector in this side. Now, this is a short piece of conduit. Let's put that in there and tighten up the set screw. And then this is actually the old box right here. I'm going to put the connector right there onto this side and tighten up this set screw. There we go. Then we'll remount the old box right here. That's where it came off.

Actually, before we put that on, I'm going to attach now back this piece of conduit, which I cut off to allow for this second box right here. We'll put the retaining ring on this, and then I'll tighten up the screws in this box over here.

I've installed our new switch in this box right here, and these two wires right here are sharing this piece of conduit, which runs down here to the square box, and it's right here where we're going to begin the wiring run for our new outside lights.

The first step in running our wires is to go from this box right here down to that box on the far wall where Bob is, and that, of course, is going to go out through that short piece of conduit to the light. Now, I've bundled our three wires together, black, white, and green, and I'll just snip off the end right here so we've got a nice clean one. This is dishwashing detergent. Sometimes this will help a little bit as a lubricant, so let's put a little of this on here. It helps it slide through the conduit a little bit easier. Push them in here, and I'm going to keep shoving now until they come out at Bob's end down there.

All right, Bob. Go ahead and grab it. Pull about a foot of it through. All right, now push it through the conduit going outside.

Now, the run from that first box over here to the second one is pretty long, in this case about 25 or 30 feet, probably a little too long to push those wires through, so we're going to use this tool right here. This is called an electrician's fish tape. It's about 100 feet of really stiff wire with a loop on the end. What I'll do is I'm going to start at the end of this conduit here inside the box, and I'm going to push this inside the conduit up over the garage door until it comes out inside that first box over there.

Okay, Bob. Go over to that first box, which it should come through any minute. You see it yet?

Can you pull it through? Pull about a foot through. Okay, that's good.

I've bundled our wires together, taped the ends like this, and stripped off the insulation on the end. I'm going to put this through the loop on the end of our fish tape, give it a couple of twists, clip off the excess right here. Now, we're going to use the fish tape to pull these wires through.

Okay, Bob. Pull the tape back through. I'll guide this into the conduit to start with. There you go. Now, he'll keep pulling until they come back out on the other side over there.

Well, this is the place where we started our project. Now, if you're going to take on something like this, consult a good book on basic wiring for the details. But basically, what I've done here is attach the black wires to the black, the greens to the greens, and the whites to the white to extend this circuit out to our lights.

There was a GFCI or ground fault circuit interrupter mounted right in this box here. Now, I've wired this circuit in such a way that the protection offered by this GFCI will extend to those new lights.

This is the mounting bracket for our carriage lamp. The wires go right through this hole in the center. This is designed to attach to a standard box like we've put in here with a screw on the top and the bottom. Let's put this one in first.

Now, this is our new carriage lamp right here. It's got a cell right here that's both a motion detector and a photoelectric cell. And the wiring on this is pretty simple, just connecting black to black, white to white, and the green to the ground. I'm just going to twist these together like so. Because these wires are a little bit smaller, we'll be using the orange-colored wire nut here.

It's on tight. Now, I'm just going to fold these a little bit so that they go up inside the back plate here like that. And there's a pin right here or a post and a hole. We want to line that up, push the post through the hole like so. And then, Bob, if you've got that little nut there, go ahead and screw that on.

That's pretty, Bob. It picks up some of the brass detail on your house. You know, the nice thing is now when you pull up at night in the dark, this will turn on automatically. Or if you want to override that feature, you've got that switch on the inside.

So where's the birthday girl?

BOB:

She's over here. Christina.

RON:

Christina, I've got something for you besides the light. That's happy birthday wishes, three years belated. But, you know, sometimes when you can anticipate and look forward to something like this for three years, it's all the much better.

No? Okay. Listen, guys, thanks for having us over.

BOB:

Thank you. We appreciate it.

CHRISTINA:

Thanks!.

From the archives of the House Doctor

Three years after buying his wife a pair of carriage lamps as a birthday gift, Bob finally called in some help to get them installed. In this step-by-step video guide, we walk through how Ron helped Bob mount two motion-activated outdoor lights on either side of the garage — complete with a manual switch, EMT conduit wiring, and GFCI protection. Watch Ron, whether you're tackling a similar project or just curious how it's done.

Planning the Installation

The goal was to mount one carriage lamp on each side of the garage. The first step was locating the nearest power source inside the garage — which turned out to be a GFCI outlet already installed on the wall. This was great news.

Because the new lights would be wired downstream of the existing GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupter), they'd automatically inherit its safety protection — a must for any outdoor electrical installation.

Why GFCI Matters Outdoors

A ground fault circuit interrupter detects dangerous current leaks and shuts off power instantly. Any outlet or fixture wired downstream of a GFCI shares that same protection — making it ideal for exterior lights exposed to moisture.

Mounting the Carriage Lamps

With wiring complete, it was time for the most satisfying part — hanging the lights themselves. The carriage lamps featured a built-in motion detector and photoelectric cell in one unit, meaning they turn on automatically at night when motion is detected.

Mounting Bracket

Attach the bracket to the exterior box using screws at the top and bottom. Feed wires through the center hole.

Wire Connections

Connect black to black, white to white, green to ground. Use orange wire nuts for the smaller lamp wires.

Secure the Fixture

Align the post with the hole on the back plate, push through, and tighten the retaining nut to lock the lamp in place.

Ron and Bob installed two beautiful carriage lamps — one on each side of the garage — that complement the brass details on the home's exterior. The lights activate automatically when motion is detected at night, and can be overridden at any time with the new interior switch.

"You know, the nice thing is now when you pull up at night in the dark, this will turn on automatically. Or if you want to override that feature, you've got that switch on the inside." — Ron

Key Takeaways for Your Project

Thinking about tackling a similar installation? Here's what to keep in mind before you start.

Start with GFCI Protection

Always wire outdoor lights downstream of a GFCI outlet or breaker for essential safety protection against moisture.

Plan Your Route First

Map the full conduit path before drilling anything. Knowing where wires enter and exit saves time and avoids costly mistakes.

Use EMT Conduit Outdoors

Thin-wall metallic conduit protects wiring and looks professional. Secure it within three feet of every box and keep it level.

Add a Manual Override Switch

Motion sensors are convenient, but a wall switch gives you full control — especially useful when you need lights on immediately.

Always turn off the circuit at the breaker and verify with a voltage tester before working on any electrical wiring. When in doubt, consult a licensed electrician.

If you enjoyed this project, you may want to read about how Ron installed an electrical outlet with a USB or troubleshoot with Ron about how to fix loose wiring.