hey guys welcome back to another episode of diy projects today we're going to be installing
these low profile four inch recessed can lights on the exterior of my house
right along the soffits so if you guys want to find out more stay tuned
what we got here is these recessed low profile slim recessed cans i bought on amazon this pack
of 16 was only like 130 bucks or something like that and there was a five percent coupon it comes
with this driver pack that you do the wiring in and then you just kind of screw it in right there
what you need is a four like a four and an eighth inch hole drill so what i got here is this four
inch 102 millimeter drill bit that i'm going to be using since i've got these soffits here they're
aluminum soffits so they're pretty easy to get into so i don't really need it to be any more than
four inches if you're doing this on drywall you may need like a 105 millimeter which is four and
an eighth that might get more room to clear the springs on the back of here but i'm going to go
ahead and try this right here and i'm about to run some attic wiring i did like half of it already i
still have to run some romex out to here and then along there between each fixture i'll just run a
piece of romex so what i'm going to end up doing is i'm going to do one every three feet starting
about three feet off the center of the wall so i've already gone up here and measured three feet
uh and then i marked the spots even though my soffits are dirty as hell up here i marked the
spot so i know where to drill i'm going to try to drill right between each of their ribs that way
it still has the rigidity and then i don't end up cutting the edges along those ribs
my calculations are correct i'm going to need about five of long here and i need two over here
i might have a gap right here and at the end i might have to do an extra two on the gap in the
end just to make it seamless but i'll see how it ends up lighting up at night i'm gonna do
the front soffits up there too over my windows on either side of that and that should complete the
front of the house all right i'll go here drill the first hole and see how it looks
a little pro tip you want to run it backwards that way you score a little bit and then you run it
forwards to cut it because it does catch a lot of the edges on there since this thing's perforated
so taking a look at the hole it came out pretty clean nice and solid there are a little bit of
jagged edges here you might just want to fold it back a little bit when you put your light in just
to make sure you don't scratch anything the light itself is pretty straightforward it just has these
two wings that clip into there there is a little gasket on here that helps it seal a little bit but
since we are on an exterior soffit that probably doesn't matter because this thing's got holes in
it and let's air into the attic space so what i'm going to do next i'm actually run the romex
through here so that way i could test the first one to make sure it lights up and everything's
good and we can do the wiring on this first one i'm gonna go ahead and drill the second one over
here and then we'll go ahead and run the wire over that way we have the wiring on two sides
all right so we're up in my attic space right now and i gotta get to this junction box right
here so this is my temporary switch and for my security light that i just ran recently this one's
wired hot right now from the garage light switch and i need to make that switch into two switches
so i could have one for the soffit lights and one for that so right now it's just hot so i just have
a switch right here so i can switch it on and off that's just temporary what i got to do is run some
romex all the way over there to the end and then fish it down into the soffit where i can get to it
i'm going to use this this 25 foot 14 2 romex and a little pro tip here it is the summer of 2021 and
right now romex is super expensive this is like 30 for 25 feet at lowe's and home depot but as a pro
tip go to walmart walmart has it for 10.72 and it might be cheaper when the prices aren't inflated
due to the construction and material storage but romex has been going up in price for the last
two months every time i go to home depot or lowe's i notice it goes up like 10 or 20 percent every
week obviously when i found this at walmart for this price i returned the ones i bought at lowe's
and home depot and just went with the walmart one after kind of looking at this i think i might have
to end up putting another one over there by the security camera right there to complete this side
and then right here where the junction changes and the last one ends over here i might just end
up putting one right there for fishing the romex through i'm gonna actually just go start from this
end and push it through that way so that way i can actually see it on the other side inside and
then pull it through that makes it a lot easier than going the other direction where i'm going in
blind so yeah you can see it came in through right there on that edge so i'm about to crawl
over there and grab it and then yank it through
so i got it fished through all the way over here and right here so i'm gonna end up terminating it
inside the switch plate and we'll go ahead and wire it up outside now
so i hit the breaker and i'm just working with my
flashlight now so what we're going to do now is just go ahead and terminate
the first thing we want to do is terminate the neutral the neutral is the white wire
and then next we're going to do the hot what you want to do is find out
which side is the switch side so one of these hots coming in on the switch
is coming from the building and the other one's going to the device so i already determined which
one of those devices the one right here on the right so i'm going to go ahead and just
unscrew that screw tuck that in and tighten it down this is not one of the ones that tuck
on the side like that so what it is is just it just sticks in and then it clamps down
and the last thing you want to do is the ground wire which is the bare copper so on here i'm just
going to end up twisting it around the existing one so the wire up the driver is pretty simple
uh what you're going to do is knock out one of these trade size half-inch knockouts here either
on the side or the top you want to use one of these plastic bushings in there just in case
it rubs and cuts into the romex once you do that you're gonna use these little wiggle push
in connectors and just push in your wire and you should be good to go after that
so i got everything wired up in that box and then closed it tucked it in and then
i actually put it up there there's a little ledge on the top that sits on top of the cmu
or the actual block of the house and i just put it there so that air and moisture and stuff
doesn't get on it the wire is long enough where you could do that so try to do that
with yours the problem with putting it right here is this moisture that builds up and just
rain and stuff gets into there and it might get wet even though this is for
damp locations i just didn't want to risk it so i'm just gonna put it right on top of that ledge
oh yeah there it is working perfectly fine that one's actually at 5000 kelvin and that one is at
4000 kelvin you can see there's a slight yellowish color on the 4000 versus the 5000 i'll see how
this looks at night i think i'm gonna go with the 4000 to make it a little bit warmer i'm gonna go
ahead and finish the rest of this off camera and i'll show you guys the final result when i'm done
i think i might have overdone it guys this seems like way too much light now even though these are
only nine watts each i've got nine of them over my garage door i could have probably done it with
half of these it turned out great output is awesome considering the neighborhood is
pitch black at least my house is nice and lit security it's not an issue around the front of
the house if you guys found this video useful give it a thumbs up if you haven't subscribed
to my channel go ahead and subscribe i usually do car content but do a lot of these diy home
projects and i always post these videos you can see that that one's still 5000k so i gotta adjust
that one down anyways hope you guys liked it and i'll talk to you guys next time you