[elmer15]

My old lights you had to turn them on by hand now I need to put a switch in and not sure how to hook the switch and the lights up please could you help

[ballengerb1]

You should run 3 wires to the light from the switch box. The green is your ground, first tell me if you have a green ground on the old system. The black carries the power, it's the hot wire and white is your neytral. Before I go any further you need to tell what wires you have coming into your new switch box before you even start installing the switch.

[massplumber2008]

Hi Elmer...

Like Ballenger said, we need to know wire type, number of wires, metal boxes, etc.

For now, I assumed that you have a 14-2 wire (black, white, ground wire) feeding into one of the lights, and then over to the other light now.

If so, find the light that has power and wire this up as diagrammed below. If the image is super small click on the attachment link a1002.jpeg to enlarge.

Here, you'll run a new 14-2 wire with a black, white and ground wire from the light with power to your new switchbox.

You'll then wire this using the black and white wires as hot wires. Here, power into light (black wire into light) feeds black wire to switch, white wire connects to switch and connects to black wires of lights. PLEASE NOTE HERE THAT YOU MUST TAPE THE WHITE WIRE BLACK TO INDICATE IT IS BEING USED AS A HOT WIRE. You must do this at the light box and the switch box (see image).

The white wire from power in at the light connects to the white wires of the light fixtures.

Ground all metal boxes and any fixture cross bars.

DO not cut any wire shorter than 6-8".

Staple wires within 8" or so of the boxes and then use common sense.

If this doesn't make sense then please ask questions or even consider hiring a licensed electrician. They can do a job like this pretty quick and easy most of the time!

Hope that gets you started...

Mark

[LaurieCarlin]

We took down our lights to clean them they are 2 lights to one switch and the wires are red brown and white and if you touch the light to the metal bar it will light up but to put the wires together they won't light the secondary light will work either way you hook the wires together