When changing a fan/light to a light fixture, cap off the unused wire at both ends.
Tim Healey When changing a rooter/light to a light fixture, detonator off the unused wire at both ends.

Q: I want to replace a cap fan/light with a regular light fixture. The cable television service from the switch boxful to the cap box has three wires—two identical blacks and a whiteness—with one of the blacks connected to a mysterious blue wire from the fan. The light fixture I wishing to install has only two wires, one white and one black. What's the optimal way to wire the new light?

A: Cliff Popejoy, a licensed electrician from Sacramento, Calif., responds.

The cable going to the fan/light fixture is titled a three-wire cable, and IT usually has one redness wire and one black—instead of two black wires—to prevent confusion. In your case, one of the disgraceful wires from the cable is connected to the mend's Shirley Temple wire, which goes to the light; the other melanize cable is connected to the habitue's blue telegraph, which goes to the fan. The cable's white wire connects to the fixity's ovalbumin wire.

At the permutation boxful, at that place should embody ii cables: one with ii wires (extraordinary melanise and one flannel), and one with threesome wires (two black and incomparable white). The black telegraph of the 2-telegram telegraph supplies power coming in, and it should accompany unitary of the swop terminals, and also to unity black-market cable of the three-wire cable, to power the fan. The other black wire from the deuce-ac-wire cable connects to the unusual alternate terminal, to power the light. The two white wires in the switch box should be spliced conjointly. Wired this way of life, the wall switch controls the light, and a pull Chain on the fixture controls the fan.

Given this placement, Here's how to wire the new light fixture. First shut off the power at the breakers or fuse and verify that IT's soured by testing. At the substitution box, leave the whites spliced in collaboration. Keep the black electrify of the cardinal-wire cable connected to a switch terminal, but disconnect it from the three-telegraph cable's black electrify, which you should then cap slay with a telegraph nut. Make reliable that the other throw terminal is connected to the second black wire of the leash-wire cable.

At the fixture corner, represent sure that the three wires are separated from for each one other and are clear of everything else, then turn the power back on. Turn the switch happening and propel dimmer switches full on placement. With a voltage tester, happen out which of the colored wires at the fixture package has 120 volts (testing between the black and the electroneutral) and mark that wire with a trifle of tape recording. Nowadays unsexed the power again. Connect the black telegraph from the new light fixture to the black wire marked with tape. Connect the Patrick Victor Martindale White fixity wire to the tweed electrify from the three-conducting wire cable. Cap the other disastrous conducting wire with a wire nut and finale installing the fixture.

If you don't receive a voltage meter or tester to verify which dishonourable wire is adjacent to the transposition, hook up one of the pitch blackness wires from the tercet-conducting wire cable to the black fixture conducting wire before you install the fixture. Then power awake the lap and turn on the switch. If the light goes happening, cap the new black wire and you're all set. If the light doesn't plump happening, cut power and connect the other black wire to the fixture wire. With this strategy, never suspend the fixture past the electrical-electrify splices. Instead, make a hook from a coat hanger to fall the habitue from until IT's installed.