A few years ago the florescent light in our downstairs office was going out so I changed the bulbs. I noticed it wasn’t in good shape when it fell from the ceiling and hit me in the forehead.
The DIY guy who built the downstairs rooms put the fixture into the wallboard ceiling with the little plastic screw holders used for solid wall mounting and it was basically held by nothing!
With a pain in my head and the fixture on my face I forced it into place and somehow managed to get it up into the ceiling with some expansion bolts that I had at hand.
It was in crooked due to head pain and the plastic cover had broken some time before and it is a mess. I was waiting until eventually I was forced to redo the room or replacing the bulbs again before deciding to fix the lighting situation.
I went to the Home Depot to get a new fixture, and they had tons of fixtures in the $20 price range which was less than I had paid for my new one I put into our upstairs closet. I brought this one home and removed the old fixture and somewhat struggled with the new one to get it into the ceiling. One of the two holes for screwing the fixture into the ceiling was covered with the internal ballast so I couldn’t get into it. Quite a design flaw!
I drilled a new hole near the end and on the side which made it lopsided but it would work. The end pieces, the four that hold the bulb, were very cheaply made plastic and one of them was hanging which I didn’t realize until it was already up in the ceiling. I had to remove the light fixture from the ceiling (I noticed it was a bit crooked as well) and return it to Home Depot.
The return specialist and I went through several before we found one that had all it’s pieces in order, and I took that one.
I came home and put the new one up and discovered it was crooked; so with my wife’s help, we got it straight and I finished the job.
Tired and angry at all the trouble, plus I had to paint the room after all this was over, I put on the light. It went on! I was happy.
Within a minute my wife started to scream. It seems my new fixture was on fire with smoke shooting out of the sides, and plastic melting!
The new fixture is now resident in the dumpster and the newer fixture, no longer the $20 model, is waiting in the garage to be installed tomorrow.
The DIY guy who built the downstairs rooms put the fixture into the wallboard ceiling with the little plastic screw holders used for solid wall mounting and it was basically held by nothing!
With a pain in my head and the fixture on my face I forced it into place and somehow managed to get it up into the ceiling with some expansion bolts that I had at hand.
It was in crooked due to head pain and the plastic cover had broken some time before and it is a mess. I was waiting until eventually I was forced to redo the room or replacing the bulbs again before deciding to fix the lighting situation.
I went to the Home Depot to get a new fixture, and they had tons of fixtures in the $20 price range which was less than I had paid for my new one I put into our upstairs closet. I brought this one home and removed the old fixture and somewhat struggled with the new one to get it into the ceiling. One of the two holes for screwing the fixture into the ceiling was covered with the internal ballast so I couldn’t get into it. Quite a design flaw!
I drilled a new hole near the end and on the side which made it lopsided but it would work. The end pieces, the four that hold the bulb, were very cheaply made plastic and one of them was hanging which I didn’t realize until it was already up in the ceiling. I had to remove the light fixture from the ceiling (I noticed it was a bit crooked as well) and return it to Home Depot.
The return specialist and I went through several before we found one that had all it’s pieces in order, and I took that one.
I came home and put the new one up and discovered it was crooked; so with my wife’s help, we got it straight and I finished the job.
Tired and angry at all the trouble, plus I had to paint the room after all this was over, I put on the light. It went on! I was happy.
Within a minute my wife started to scream. It seems my new fixture was on fire with smoke shooting out of the sides, and plastic melting!
The new fixture is now resident in the dumpster and the newer fixture, no longer the $20 model, is waiting in the garage to be installed tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment