Outdoor lighting can be a nice accent to the exterior of your home, it looks nice and it also adds a safety feature as well. When purchasing a lamppost, the lamppost and light fixture are sold as a single unit. You can buy these products at any Home Depot, Lowes or any other hardware store. Installing a lamppost usually involves digging a trench and running conduit to where you want the lamppost. You can read a “how to” article that I have written called “How To Install Conduit”. This is where most of the work will come in when installing a lamppost. When running PVC conduit, it needs to be buried 18 inches in the ground. The conduit will run up into the lamppost through the supplied post. There are many different types of lampposts but the electrical connection is the same on all of them and is a pretty simple connection to make.
The most important part of this instillation is the part that most people will never see and that is the cable and conduit buried under the ground. The first thing you need to do is dig a trench at least 18 inches deep under ground. This trench will lead from the house connection to the are of the lamppost. Dig your trench and lay 3/4 inch PVC conduit with cable running from the house to the site of the lamppost. Run the conduit up the post by using an elbow piece. This is simply a piece of conduit that makes a 45 degree turn up toward the lamppost. Place a fiber tube form with a slot cut for the conduit over it. These fiber tubes can also be bought at any hardware store. Lower the post into the form and fill it with concrete, this will give the lamppost support along with protecting the conduit and cable.
Next you want to strip the cable wires and connect them to the fixture leads. Don’t forget to turn off all power where you are working, you may think that you can do this job without shutting down the power, just be safe and turn it off. It only takes one false move to zap yourself and possibly cause some damage. Twist and connect the black to the black, the white to the white, and the ground to the ground. People often have trouble keeping the ground wire attached to the ground screw, usually if you don’t mess with it, it won’t move on you. If you don have to unscrew the ground wire for some reason, be sure to connect it back to the screw and make sure it’s good and tight. This is basically it for the electrical connection, if you don have detailed questions, refer to the manufacturers directions, they usually have pretty good detailed pictures and instructions.
The next step is to finish up the job by placing the cap and filling the trench. Screw the cap to the top of the post, then mount the light socket in the cap. The mounting method depends on the type of fixture and will be spelled out in the manufacturers instructions. Turn the power back on and see if it works. If everything works fine, the only thing left to do is fill up the trench. If you have done this over a grassy area, fill the trench with dirt and careful fit the grass back on top. It will look a little funny at first but eventually the grass will grow back together and you will never know anything was ever done. If you are just doing it over a dirt area, you don’t have to be so concerned with the look, just be sure you compact the area good so the dirt doesn’t erode away.
This is a pretty easy project that again, creates a nice look for the exterior of your home and also provides another safety feature. People are less likely to be interested in robbing your home if the outside is well lit. The digging is by far the most difficult part of this job, but after that you are home free and this entire project can be done in a couple hours. Good luck.
