The manner in which it is mounted now is a little suspect, at best. How old is the unit? Bulb? For $40 you can get a new housing, bulb, and mount that would fit your gable. Probably a better solution. https://www.homedepot.com/p/Halo-65...k-to-Dawn-Photocell-Sensor-AL6501FL/205338547
Mount for area light on house?
I have an area light that I want to mount on my house. The light was previously mounted on top of a carport attached to the side of the house. The carport has been torn down so I am looking for a new (and better) way to mount the light on the house. The light was mounted to metal heater pipe and secured with small cables on each side. It worked but looked terrible. The wiring for the light was run along a beam of the old carport to an outdoor outlet. I'm wondering if I need to enclose the the wire in conduit or something to protect it from the elements? Attached is the old light mount.
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This is the style of mounting arm I keep seeing in my google searches for a light mount. Below is a picture of the two places I am considering mounting the light. You can see a bit of the old carport on the left side of the pic but unfortunately I never took a full picture of the house and carport with the old light setup. The only thing I liked about the old mount was that it was high up and lit up the area in front of the house very well. The green circle shows the first spot I'm considering. My gut is telling me that this would be too low and probably in the way and not very effective. The red circle shows the other spot I am considering. The white box in the picture is from an old alarm system and will be removed. I would have to take measurements to see if the mount I posted would work in this spot because of the eve overhang. My main concern with this spot is that the light would shine mostly on the roof and not on the driveway and yard where I need it to. What do you guys think?
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Chandler that's the part OP already has lol... (plus, if I'm buying a new barn light, I'll go LED - yeah, take a picture, it's me recommending LED over fluorescent!)
OP, the thing with the elbow isn't a good idea. You're better off getting - well, since I started writing this, everyone has linked it
Or... look at whatever pipe size your lamp is designed to clamp to, and get EMT conduit that size and custom-bend it to suit. Leave a nice long straight section that'll go against the wall, and anchor that to the wall high and low, and clamp it down well so it doesn't swing.
Your red location isn't a good idea unless you can put a nice long version of what you pictured there. The roof will block the light from getting where you want. I might complement it with strip lighting along the eave fed from the green?white? location, or possibly a cheapie LED floodlight there if you don't like your neighbors too much If that green location only has low voltage wiring to it, then use a low voltage flood or strip light and put its 12/24V power supply on the other end of the LV wiring...
Yes, the wires go down the pipe (another reason that 90 elbow is stupid, needs to be a sweep). You're welcome to extend the conduit as far as you like on into the building.
Now, the reason I like LEDs for area lighting is it's easier to **aim it**. You don't want skyglow. You don't want a big bright spot on the side of the building. (or to be more precise, you don't want to *see it* or *pay for it*). Every technology except LED throws a sphere of light - hence our love of reflectors. But reflectors aren't very efficient. LEDs throw a wedge of light of about 150 degrees. That lends itself to lenses, which are very close to 100% efficient. So for instance a wallpack light wants about a 60 degree tall by 180 degree wide wedge so it lights up the ground, and not neighbor's bedroom, and not sky, and not barn wall, and with more throw higher so it doesn't overlight the near ground. That's all doable with good lens design. Now that you're only lighting a 1/6 wedge of the apple, you only need 1/6 of the power
OP, the thing with the elbow isn't a good idea. You're better off getting - well, since I started writing this, everyone has linked it
Or... look at whatever pipe size your lamp is designed to clamp to, and get EMT conduit that size and custom-bend it to suit. Leave a nice long straight section that'll go against the wall, and anchor that to the wall high and low, and clamp it down well so it doesn't swing. Your red location isn't a good idea unless you can put a nice long version of what you pictured there. The roof will block the light from getting where you want. I might complement it with strip lighting along the eave fed from the green?white? location, or possibly a cheapie LED floodlight there if you don't like your neighbors too much
If that green location only has low voltage wiring to it, then use a low voltage flood or strip light and put its 12/24V power supply on the other end of the LV wiring... Yes, the wires go down the pipe (another reason that 90 elbow is stupid, needs to be a sweep). You're welcome to extend the conduit as far as you like on into the building.
Now, the reason I like LEDs for area lighting is it's easier to **aim it**. You don't want skyglow. You don't want a big bright spot on the side of the building. (or to be more precise, you don't want to *see it* or *pay for it*). Every technology except LED throws a sphere of light - hence our love of reflectors. But reflectors aren't very efficient. LEDs throw a wedge of light of about 150 degrees. That lends itself to lenses, which are very close to 100% efficient. So for instance a wallpack light wants about a 60 degree tall by 180 degree wide wedge so it lights up the ground, and not neighbor's bedroom, and not sky, and not barn wall, and with more throw higher so it doesn't overlight the near ground. That's all doable with good lens design. Now that you're only lighting a 1/6 wedge of the apple, you only need 1/6 of the power
For mounting on that spot with the red circle, you would want to get the light out past the roof line. There are a couple of ways.
I have attached an image of a street light arm. You could make something similar using Rigid conduit and a little bit of engineering. The further out you go from the building with a mounting arm, the more forces there are on the mounting point. That gable end might need reinforcing to mount one of these.
I like the idea someone else mentioned of going through the roof like a mast. If you were to do that, you could use Rigid conduit to go up, use a 90, then rigid straight out. Cut it to length, and install the light. I would add a pipe on a 45 degreee angle (or whatever angle will work. Even 70 degrees would help) from the horizontal part down to the vertical part to take stress off of the 90.
IF you could get your hands on a street light arm like the one pictured, it would be the easiest, but they can be expensive .
Whatever you do, make sure that the light will fit on the mount... Street light arms are 2.38" and the light arm you posted is 1 5/8".
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