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wiring for undercabinet lighting with walls open

14342 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  vsheetz
I've been googling for a while and not finding much useful information, everythign I find seems to be for adding in undercabinet lighting to a finished kitchen.

I have my walls totally open and would like to add two sets of undercabinet lighting, one for each side of the room (galley kitchen layout).

I'd like each set controlled by it's own switch (one switch by sink and other switch by stove).

Each side of the room has a "gap" in the cabinets so wiring will have to be in wall. (One gap is the sink and the other gap is the stove)

Could someone explain to me how and where to run the wiring? I obviously will run 14/2 to each switch, but from there should i run 14/2 to a junction box on each side which will be behind the cabinets and then run 14/2 to each section of undercabinet that will be controlled by that switch and just leave the wire sticking out of the wall at the height of the bottom of the cabinet for my rough inspection?

would love any help!
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I've been googling for a while and not finding much useful information, everythign I find seems to be for adding in undercabinet lighting to a finished kitchen.

I have my walls totally open and would like to add two sets of undercabinet lighting, one for each side of the room (galley kitchen layout).

I'd like each set controlled by it's own switch (one switch by sink and other switch by stove).

Each side of the room has a "gap" in the cabinets so wiring will have to be in wall. (One gap is the sink and the other gap is the stove)

Could someone explain to me how and where to run the wiring? I obviously will run 14/2 to each switch, but from there should i run 14/2 to a junction box on each side which will be behind the cabinets and then run 14/2 to each section of undercabinet that will be controlled by that switch and just leave the wire sticking out of the wall at the height of the bottom of the cabinet for my rough inspection?

would love any help!
1) Get the wire that feeds the lights into the switch box
2) If all lights are on the same circuit (controlled by the same switch) you only need one continuous wire (at rough) for the lights
3) The continuous wire runs from the switch, behind sheetrock, through the studs. When you get to a location for an under-counter light, pull a section of wire out at that location and continue to the next light location and do the same.
4) When you are finished with the rough it should look like this: wire will be pulled to feed the lights into the switch box, then there should be at every light location a looped section of wire about 8" long. This looped section of wire will be cut in half outside the wall at time of finish when you need a wire to feed the 1st light and the other half of the wire continues the leg of the circuit to the next light. At the end of the circuit you should have the end of the continuous wire, this will be the end of the circuit so you won't have a wire going out of the last light.

It depends on what type of light you are installing as to how to connect the wire to the light to meet code. The lights we used in california in a track home were low profile fluorescent tube lights, the wire was used was standard romex that was fed through a knockout in the back of the light with a romex connector in the knockout, the lights sat flush to the wall.

Does this make sense.
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