Recently purchased a pair of exterior light fixtures to replace our old ones by our front door. Our house is older, but I haven’t had much of a problem replacing fixtures before. However, the two screws which come out of the exterior wall and lined up with the old fixtures don’t line up with the next fixtures. I figured the spacing would have been universal. The bracket appears to be buried in the wall. Am I missing something here? If not, what can I do to fit the new exterior light fixtures?
What is the wall made of, and in what way is the plate buried in it?
Normally, the plate has a number of different attachment points, and you just find the one that fits your particular fixture.
The exterior of our house is wooden shakes. The screws come right out of one of the shakes. Not sure if I have to cut into the shake to reach the screws and adjust.
if there are separate wires coming out then there should be an electrical box that machine screws go into. this box should come out to the siding surface or be extended out to the surface using a box extender ring.
old boxes used to be smaller than current ones. you can get a universal fixture strap adapter (looks like a metal bow tie shape) with holes and curved slots in it. this could accommodate machine screws in different positions from the original fixture.
you may need to cut some siding out to get to the front of the box. you may have to add wood (a circular or rectangular donut) to get the fixture to mount tight if you add a wood spacer or strap adapter.
this type of thing is both being creative while doing safe electrical and weather proofing.
What johnpost said. Wiring connections need to be in the box, not exposed to exterior wooden shakes (especially). You need to kill the breaker, cut out a 4" circle in the siding to expose the box and extend or replace it.
There is a lot of bad wiring around, and old exterior fixtures are terrible. I have seen a lot of crap like you describe and I always amazed they are even functional. It wont really take that long to fix, but it is worth it. Remember most house fires are due to electrical issues.
Old wiring, especially DIY stuff, is often very poorly done, as people have mentioned.
It’s possible that there is no box, and the wires just come out of a hole in the wood shakes, and the old fixtures were attached over that, via screws into the wood. Unsafe, but sadly, not uncommon! In that case, you should insert a box into the wall, make your connections in the box, and then the new fixture should mount onto the box.
No, most house fires are related to cooking accidents. Number 2 is either smoking or furnace problems. Bad electrical wiring is number 4 or 5.
if there is a cable (individual insulated wires inside a protective jacket of plastic, fiber or metal) with the jacket coming out well beyond the siding then you would not need a box with a special light fixture. the fixture would not have wires visible but they would be enclosed in a metal housing, the cable would pass into this housing through a hole. the lamp could have a small metal box inside or the whole metal back of the lamp would come off for wiring. this type of lamp could be mounted to the building with wood screws.
if there are individual insulated wires coming out of the siding then an electrical box has to be on the building to meet the electrical code (USA) and good safety practice. this box or its extension ring should go up to or beyond the siding surface. the lamp could then mount to the box with machine screws. an extension ring may require you to make a wood spacer to get the lamp to mount tight.
My mistake, thinking back, that is info I took from my electrician after dealing with a dead circuit in a custom home I was building.
I have seen a number of fires caused by electrical faults, but also by wood-burning stoves. I guess I have some observation bias because of the numbers of issues I have seen with electrical, admittedly the chances of arcing actually igniting a wood fire is pretty low, compared to an overheating issue. Still code is code and it is simply common sense to keep wiring connections in boxes that can isolate possible sparks.
On checking the interwebs I find some secondary sources putting electrical at number 5 but no original sources.