Exterior light switching

Other Devices & Integrations Lighting & Load Control
1

I have an exterior HPS ballast and bulb that is currently hooked up to an inside switch. The switch currently has a 12/2 wire with the hot and neutral lines functioning as a hot switch (neutral wrapped in electrical tape). The nearby inside outlet is on a different branch from the breaker panel. The light location is outside under the eaves of a house with an 18in overhang. The light is hard wired into a single gang junction box. The junction box has hot/neutral/ground wires.

I’d like to be able to run a new LED light outside on a z-wave timer/motion scene. It seems like my options are to:

  1. Rewire the switch with 12/3 and include a neutral at the switch. The wire run is not easily accessible and probably the most difficult solution to implement.
  2. Cap off the switch and run a GE 45605 receptacle in the outside junction box. Put a male plug on the LED light and plug into the switched receptacle.
  3. Cap off the switch and run a GE45604 into an outdoor GFCI receptacle. Put a male plug on the LED light and plug that into the 45604.
  4. Cap off the switch and put in a two gang outdoor junction box. Put in an outdoor GFCI and run the 45605 on the load side of the GFCI. Put a male plug on the LED light and plug the light into the switched receptacle.

My preference would be option #2 as it seems to be the most simple solution. The outlet would be up and out of the weather and I’d run a weatherproof in-use cover over it. I have two concerns with this approach. First, is that the current electrical code appears to require the installation of GFCI outlets at all exterior receptacles. Second, the 45606 is labeled as “interior” use only. The house is older and currently has other exterior outlets which are not GFCI protected. If nothing else is going to be plugged in at this location, should I be concerned?

Any other creative solutions out there?

2

That’s a tough one. Seems like you’ve thought through your limited options. The easiest solution would be to not use an LED light, but use incandescent or halogen. You would then have many Z-wave switch options that don’t require a neutral.

Other than that, using option #3 with a battery-powered scene controller at your switch location should work, give you GFCI protection, and not require rewiring. You do say that there is a “nearby inside outlet is on a different branch from the breaker panel.” From that, you might be able to install a wired scene controller. There was a good discussion about the neutral being common ([url=http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,10516.0.html]http://forum.micasaverde.com/index.php/topic,10516.0.html[/url]), so using that “inside outlet” as a neutral source might also be a possibility, but could be complicated if GFCI or AFCI circuits are involved.

Edit: NEC 2011 210.8 covers when GFCI protection is required. To my untrained eye, GFCI appears to only be required for outdoor receptacles, not lighting circuits. You might be able to use that “nearby inside outlet” as your new lighting circuit power source and tap off the current source.

3

The purpose of switching to LED lighting was to reduce energy consumption for lights left on over night.

You make a good point though. One option I had not considered is branching off the interior receptacle that’s near the switch. I could run a new romex line from the receptacle to the switch and use the existing line from the switch to the light. Then I’d just abandon the existing line coming into the junction box outside. I didn’t feel comfortable sharing a neutral across two circuits, but see less issue with extending the circuit to include the light.

I could then change the existing switch out to a GE 45609 as I’d have the hot/neutral/ground present. I’m not worried about adding to the load on the circuit as the outside LED is only 30 watts. The receptacles on that branch are rarely used.

As for the electrical code, I believe the GFCI protection rules apply only to 15 and 20 amp receptacles. Fixed and attached lighting are not covered from what I understand.

4

LED lights run on DC voltage. The LED bulbs you can buy tend to have an integrated AC/DC converter plus something to drop the voltage down.

You can get always try having LEDs that use a 12v transformer. You can keep this inside the house and then run out DC cable for the LEDs. It will be much thinner cable and stranded too.