Hey, guys! In today’s video we’re going to show you how to install LED slim panel
down lights in a basement bathroom. Basement bathrooms are notorious for being dark, and
that’s never a good thing. Now, today’s video is sponsored by Parmida LED Technologies.
We’re going to be installing their 4-inch slim panel down lights. They come in a variety
of different temperatures. You also get net 60 days. So if you buy a whole bunch of lights,
you don’t have to pay for them until 60 days later with no interest. They’re direct-to-consumer.
And also, when you buy online, you can get free shipping for all orders over $25. So
we’re going to show you how to install these today.
Okay, so one of the main reasons that I like these slim lights is that you can pretty much
retro-fit these in later on after you have the drywall up. Because a lot of the times,
you just don’t have the room or the space to put a full can light, especially in a basement.
I’m really trying to get the most head room I can possibly get in the basement, and there’s
always plumbing, ductwork, all types of things running through the ceiling. And, a lot of
times, it’s just not practical to put a full, recessed can light in there. So that’s
the main reason that I always try to just basically use these slim lights in a basement
bathroom or any situation where there’s going to be a lot of different things within
those joists. You just have a lot more flexibility. But one thing you do want to do is to try
to find the joists because there’s only on limitation that I have found with these
types of lights, and that it having the joists being directly in center of the hole. If the
joist is, say, two inches from the edge of your hole, it could still fit. I just want
to make sure that my joist isn’t going to be centered with my hole so that this 4x4
box can actually fit. So let’s first take a look and see where—this
is just a regular stud finder—and find out where my joists are. So we have a joist here;
that’s the center. And then we have a joist here. And we have a joist here. So if I were
to measure off two inches from the center of there, I can put that light there and be
fine even if that joist overhangs the hole a little bit. That’s one nice thing: even
if the joist is within the area that’s a problem, you can still get that can light
in. So we’re going to shoot in between these
two joists. There’s no reason to have the joist interfere with the hole at all. So let’s
measure this way. So we got 59 ½ inches. That’s 29 ¾. So we’ll make our center
mark just right about there. We’re approximately four inches away from the edge of our joist
there. Okay, so within the package, it does come
with a template. So this is basically the size of the hole that you need to make. Four
and 5/16 is actually the size of the hole. So we can actually just put his on our center
mark here. It has a little hole that you can see the pencil mark, and then we can just
trace this little template. So that’s the hole that we actually need to cut.
There are many different ways that you can go about this. You can actually just use a
regular keyhole saw and cut his by hand. You can use a RotoZip. Or one of the easiest ways
is to use this Milwaukee adjustable bit so these blades can adjust to fit the size hole
that you’re making, and it has a dust shroud too. So if you’re doing a lot of holes,
you’re doing lots of lights, it makes sense to have a hole saw that actually can cut these
holes pretty easily. Okay, in this situation, this is going to
be above our vanity. We’re going to have a vanity here, and we’re going to have a
toilet. And the reason this bulkhead is here is because there’s ductwork that comes up
and goes all the way up to the second floor through a chase way that goes through the
house. So this was a very limited area, and I was unable to really put a can light. So
I was really unable to put this anywhere within this space because of all the ductwork. So
the slim light is really going to work perfectly for this. But I do have ductwork that is only
a half inch above this drywall within this area. So I’m going to keep my lights away
from that ductwork because I won’t have the room.
Even though they’re really slim, they still have this electrical box that’s connected
to it. So they still would not necessarily fit between the ductwork and my drywall. So
I’m going to make sure I keep it away from my ductwork area. So we’re roughly 11 inches
from the edge, and we’ll go 8 inches from the wall. And this is just because of my situation.
Typically, it would be nice to center it within this, but just the way that basically all
the ductwork I had up there, I pretty much have to have these off-center. But I’m going
to match the same thing on this side, so we’ll go 11 inches, and just keep it the same at
8 inches by 11. Okay, and then we’ll put our little template on our little crosshair,
and we’ll mark. For this one, we’re just going to use a
regular hole saw. And I actually have my ductwork right here, so that’s why I was not able
to go any further this way. So now that I have this here, I already had my electrician
run my wires up there, so I was able to just grab my line for the lights.
In this particular instance, we’re using the Dremel RotoZip. So you can use a Dremel
RotoZip to also cut out drywall for any type of recessed light, but this makes it really
quick and easy. So now you have three different methods or three different ways in which you
can cut out drywall. It’s just a matter of choosing one that works for you.
Okay, so I have my electrician run these switch loops for my lighting prior me putting up
this drywall. I wasn’t really certain where I was going to put these, but I did want to
add another light to this. So I’m going to fish another wire through this hole to
the one above the main rom area. What I use is these fish sticks. These kind of help fish
something through a wall and grab this. Okay, electrical tape the wire to the fish stick.
So again, this is just a loose wire that we connected to the wires that were up in the
ceiling that were run by the electrician. So you can just cut a simple wire to whatever
length you need and then you can fish it through your ceiling or fish it through the drywall
so that you can get it to where it needs to go for the recess light. So that’s what
we did here. Okay, just to explain what we have here. Now
I have a third wire connected to my light in the center of the room. That’s the one
I’ve just fished. But basically what the electrician had here was this power supply
goes to the switch. So when I turn on the switch, it’ll turn on this lead. And then
this one’s connected to this other light. So now I have the switch and two lights connected.
So basically, once you turn on the switch, all the lights will turn on. So it’s basically
just a daisy chain of basically all three lights.
Okay, so now after you have your holes cut, the first thing you want to do is connect
the box. So the box has a wire that you plug in your light to, but you have to hardwire
your wires to the box. So it just has a regular 3/8-inch knock-outs that you would want to
knock out. Doesn’t really matter which end. I mean there’s all types of knock-outs on
this thing. But typically, you’ll only be able to get three wires into this box. Now,
you always want to follow your local electrical code, and you really should probably have
a licensed electrician to make these connections. But typically, you’re just going to be using
a standard type of 3/8 connector. So whether it’s a metallic one like this with a thread-on
piece to it, or the ones that I kind like is these push-in fittings. They’re just
plastic. Just pop them in, and then you just plug your wire through that fitting. And basically
all that does is when you pull on this, it’s going to keep it connected to the box. So
having a push connector is important pretty much for any type of light fixtures you install.
Typically, I like to leave about six inches of wire inside of that box. We’ll put another
push-in fitting. And you could do two wires into one fitting. You’re not going to want
to do any more than that because it’ll be too tight to actually get the wire in. But
always tug on these to make sure they’re connected well to the box. Okay, then let’s
strip our… Okay, then at this point, typically, you’re
just going to be doing white to white, black to black, and green to your ground. This is
always going to be dependent on how the electrician had wired the wires. But in this situation,
we just basically have a switch, creating one of these black wires hot to turn on the
light fixtures. These are really nice, these little plug-in
connectors. They make it really easy. You don’t have to use a wire nut or anything.
Just poke them in, and they hold into place. So it really makes it a fast and easy install
when you have these connectors. And these connectors are already attached to the wire.
So we’ll just connect all these. Now, I only strip these out by ¾ of an inch
because you don’t want to have bare wire sticking out beyond your fitting. So when
you go to cut the sheathing off of this, just make sure you’re not extending outside of
your push-in fitting. So as you could see right here like that’s about where my end
is, and now I have plenty of coating covered around that. Then you got the ground wire.
As you could see, the connections for the copper wires are super easy to make inside
these Parmida LED lights. Then this box just has a little lip on it
that just kind of lips into your groove on the other side. So you just want to make sure
that this little lid ledge is going over top of the box. And it kind of just makes a little
clicking sound. So now we have an enclosed, safe wire connection. Now, we’ll just stuff
this into the hole. Now, if you had a joist, you know, say right
against the edge of the box, you can actually mount the box on that ledge. Or typically,
I normally just set it on top of the drywall and just allow this to stick out so that I
can connect to my slim light. So if I had a joist that I was able to connect it to,
I’d probably put a screw in it to make sure that box doesn’t move anywhere. But for
all intents and purposes, just sitting it on the drywall, it’s a well-contained electrical
box. Basically, this connector has a little slot.
You line it up with the slot on your box connector, and you just thread this together. Now, this
does have a protective film, so if you’re painting or doing anything like that, you
can just keep that on there and then no one will get anything on it. But we already have
a finished ceiling here, so I’m going to take the plastic off. And then these have
these little spring-loaded clips. Put one side in the other. Fold that up. And you have
a little bit of adjustment to make sure you cover any area around the drywall.
So we’re just repeating the process that we did for the first light, for the second,
and the third. This is a very easy and straightforward process. It’s actually easier than most
lights. So about ¾ of an inch. Just cut that sheathing
off the wire. So put our ground to ground, our neutral to neutral. Power to power here.
So we’re pushing the box back into the ceiling. You can see it’s just a slim box. And then
making the connection between the light and the box. And these slim-fit LED lights are
so easy to install. I mean, like we said earlier in the video, they’re easy to install than
most lights in a home, and they definitely provide enough light for a basement bathroom
or pretty much anywhere. So we’re just putting in our connector there, feeding our wire through,
stripping the insulation off the copper wires, and then pushing them into the push-connect
fittings inside the Parmida lights. Super easy.
Pull on to make sure you have a good connection. But typically, once you slide them in, they
have a mechanism that keeps them from moving out. But just double-check to make sure your
connections are good. These push-connect fittings are awesome. Again,
even if you’ve never wired something before, very easy and straightforward to use. But
if you’re not comfortable wiring these LED lights, definitely call in a licensed electrician
and they’ll do it for you. The biggest tip that we have for you there is have a bunch
of lights for them to install. But again, you can see the difference that these LED
lights make in our basement bathroom. Looks really great.
I just wanted to show you that even if you didn’t pay attention to where your joist
is, that’s one of the nice things about these slim lights is that they’re thinner
than your actual drywall itself. So even if that joist does come in, as long as I can
get this box to fit into my hole and to make the connection, you’ll be able to make this
slim light work by basically just twisting. So you could see the connectors, the actual
mechanism holding the light fixture together, it doesn’t matter where that joist is necessarily.
Just as long as you get that box in, you’ll be able to figure out a way to get this slim
light to work. So that’s what’s really nice about this is that even if you had a
joist that was in the way, this really makes it easy to install.
So now you could see how this basement bathroom is now well light up. Now, I can get to work
and do all of my precise tile work and all the other layout. I always like to put the
lights in first so I could see exactly what I’m doing. And these slim lights really
make it easy for remodeling. I highly recommend it for basement bathroom or any project that
you might not know exactly where the joists are and where you need to put them. They really
make it simple and easy to put in. So check out Parmida LED Technology online. I use them
in a lot of my homes. I love them. And you’ll find it how easy it is to use, so thanks.