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
