Replace our pool light housing ourselves??

[LisaDLu]

We have bad pool light housing that needs to be replaced. My friend who replaced his light has offered to help my husband with it. What do you think? Does this project usually run into snags or is it smooth sailing? If it's snag infested I'll call an electrician to do it. Also, where is the best place to buy a pool light online pricewise?

My existing pool light is pulled out and sitting up on the deck (breaker is off). Is it ok to leave it this way for a while until I get this taken care of? Can water get into the conduit housing the wiring? THANKS

 

[JasonLion]

Leaving the light fixture on the deck turned off is fine, just don't trip over it

It isn't usually all that difficult to replace the fixture, a reasonable DIY project. The one big risk is if the conduit has collapsed, then it will be impossible to replace. Fortunately that is quite rare. Another smaller issue is if someone has epoxied the back of the light nice to stop a leak. That can usually be fixed but it can be a mess to get the old epoxy out and you can't always do it.

 

[Divin Dave]

Barring any of the bad things Jason mentions, the best way to pull the new cable...

get some nylon string known as Masons Line at the hardware store. its about 1/8 diameter
get some Scotch 33+ electrical tape

disconnect the old cable from the switch or whatever its hooked up to. But first, take a pic of it so you can hook up the new cable the same way.

Then, use the string and tie several half hitch knots for about a foot down the old cable. Then pull on the sting so that the string is tight to the cable and tape the string to the cable with at least 3 wraps of tape, and 6 wraps right at the end of the cable.

On the other end of the string, tie a stick, wrench, or something so that you dont pull the opposite end of the string through the conduit accidentally. Otherwise you will have to use a fish tape, which sometimes isnt easy, especially if there are 90 degree bends in the conduit.

Pull the old cable and light out and the nylon pull string will be there for you to use to pull the new cable back through the conduit.

Easy as pie.

 

[wadewood]

I had to replace 2 lights in my pool recently. At first, they would not budge out of conduit. I thought maybe conduit had collapsed. I bought a cheap cable winch come along from Harbor Freight. I attached this to a tree across the pool from the stuck light and attached and ran rope to the light. I put some tension on this and finally the lights/cable starting pulled out. Once they got started moving, it was easy.

I bought my replacements from Amazon. Might had just been a pricing quirk but the lights I needed were cheaper with a much longer cable than the same light with shorter cable.

 

[Cybergy]

I had so much tension on the cable I thought I may damage the niche, so I stopped. I tried pulling from both ends and filling up the conduit with water but it just would not move. We had a patio replaced over top of the conduit so maybe there was too much weight on top - I'll likely never know.

The fix was to switch from a 120 volt light to a 12 volt of the same (Pentair Intellibrite). This allowed me to splice a new light in at the wet end and re-use the existing cable. Heat-shrink, adhesive filled submersible-rated tubing will waterproof the connection and tomorrow I will know the results when I install it.

Hopefully the end of my pool light problems for a good long while.