Expert: Al Latimer - 6/20/2004

Question
Hi Al,

I'm trying to change a light bulb fixture because a burnt out bulb got stuck in when I was trying to remove it.  This house was built in 1979.  The original fixture had a pull chain on it, but I bought one without the pull chain.

The old fixture has a short black and a short white wire attached.  The new fixture has a copper section with two screws on each side of center.

I'm not sure where to attach the black and white wires to the new fixture and how to connect them to the old wires coming out of the ceiling.  There is only one black bare-ended wire coming from the ceiling.  The rest are still enclosed in screw caps (three wires each).

Does the short black one attach to the other black one with a screw cap (I took a screw cap off and think it connected the black wires).  There doesn't seem to be an obvious place to connect the white wire.

Can you help?

Thanks.

Robert  

Answer
Robert, on your new fixture if there are just two screw terminals, one should be a brass or darker color and leads to the center of the lamp socket.  This would normally be where the short single black wire connects.  Of the other two groups of three wires, one should be made up of two black wires and one white wire.  Leave this group alone under the wire nut.  The other group should be all white and a white from this group needs to connect to the other screw terminal on the fixture which will be a silver or bright color and runs to the outer shell of the lamp socket.

If this arrangement does not agree with your situation, feel free to come back with any additional detail you can come up with.

Al