Sunday, August 30, 2015

Looking for help with under cabinet lights that I don't know how to turn on HomeImprovement

Location: Cincinnati, Ohio

Problem: I'm hoping to maybe pick some of your brains here to help me out with this situation that has been bugging me since I moved into this place a few months ago. I have 6 lights underneath the wall cabinets in my kitchen. I have no idea how to turn these lights on. All 6 lights have exposed wiring that goes directly into the wall behind the cabinets, so I am not sure how to approach tracing the wires. There is a light switch in the kitchen that I can't figure out what it was installed for. It is above the kitchen counter next to a coax cable outlet, and is connected to the same breaker switch as the refrigerator (located a few feet to the left of it). I figured out that the light switch controls the power to an outlet on the other side of the wall as the fridge (in the laundry room). That outlet is located next to two black wires jutting out of the wall that the realtor said the previous owner used to hook up speakers (I have no idea why they would want speakers in the laundry room, but to each their own). I'm kind of at a loss here. My parents own the place, so it is okay if I do some work on the walls or whatnot, but I don't really want to put a ton of holes in the walls to figure out where these wires lead to. I thought that maybe these lights could be "always on" and maybe the bulbs are just burnt out, but the bulbs look fine (the filament isn't broken in any of the six lights), and I connected a cheap voltage tester to the exposed part of the wires inside the disassembled light fixture and saw that the wires weren't hot, so I don't think that is the problem. I do find it strange that this light switch is on the same breaker as the fridge and only controls a single outlet in another room. Maybe I am getting too fixed on this switch and these lights are actually wired up elsewhere though. I have tried ever combination of light switches in the place to try to get these to light up though, and to no avail. I know this isn't anything crucial and I could live with never turning those lights on, but unfortunately I'm the kind of person where something like this bothers me every time I walk into the kitchen. If anyone has any ideas at all, I am open to any suggestions. I am half tempted to hire an electrician to come figure this out for me as I don't have many fancy tools to trace wires and such, but I am definitely willing to try a few things before resorting to that. Hopefully someone with more experience with this kind of thing can give me an idea that I haven't thought of and I can turn these dumb lights on. Thank you in advance for any comments/advice!

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Submitted August 31, 2015 at 08:02AM by Nazadil http://ift.tt/1JvmvTL HomeImprovement

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