First off, buy yourself a book. Wiring is not that bad as long as you think ahead and give it the respect it needs. I just finished re-wiring my entire basement and I did not know much before I started but I know a heck of a lot more now.
I'm trying to wrap my head around what you want. So you had 4 lights in the ceiling but now that you have a suspended ceiling, so they are not poking through? And out of those 4, you plan on only using two of them? Easy enough. You want to go out and get some pot lights. You can buy them anywhere just make sure you have enough room to put them in. You can buy ones that just sit right on top of the panels in your suspended ceiling, just make dam sure they are not close to any insulation you may have in your ceiling or by the type that it dosen't really matter.
With regards to putting out of commision the ones you don't plan to use, well thats tougher, it really depends on how the circuit is flowing already as likely some of the ones you don't want need to stay there so the circuit can continue to the ones you do want. Do you plan on pulling all the wire out of your ceiling or use what is already there? If you are just going to re-use them, determine which ones you are not going to use.
It's really hard to say what to do without knowing what is going on in your basement but the best piece of advice I can give now is figure out how the wiring is in right now. Is it all on the same circut? Is it a basic circuit? Where does it begin and where does it terminate?
Here is the most basic circuit for lighting in a ceiling:
Main panel----->ligh switch------>light one-------->light two------->light three---------->light 4 (end of run)
Thats about as easy as they get, now assuming (as an example) that you don't need lights 2 & 4 anymore, just remove the light fixture that was there before leaving just the octagonal box and the supply lines, reconnect the black and white wires (screw the two ground wires into the base of the box) so they travel to the next box and cap the octagonal box with an octagonal metal plate. Easy like that. You can buy the octagonal plates in the same isle you would by the boxes. They screw onto the box using the same holes your light fixtures would have mounted to the box with.
Things get a little more complicated if this is the kind of circuit you have:
Main panel------->light one-------->light switch---------->light two------>light three-------->light four (end of run)
The reason this is somewhat tougher is because one of the white wires between light one and the light switch will be acting as hot wire (black), if you have this going on, BUY A BOOK and learn how these circuits flow. If the guy who originaly put in the wiring was competent, the white wire that is acting as a hot should have black electrical tape wrapped around it to indicate this in both the light itself and the switch it runs to.
In short:
Figure out what breaker in your panel is running the lights in your ceiling. Turn a light or lamp, radio, whatever in each room in your basement. Shut off the breaker that is running the lights in question and see what else (if anything) is shut down as a result, if it is the lights, and only the lights, your job is really easy, if it shuts off more than just the lights like outlets in the walls, you will have to trace the entire circuit before you do anything.
Let me know if I can be of any more help.
Drop me aline if I have any other questions.
Last edited by GoinAllTheWay; 05-13-2006 at 11:34 AM.
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Hey, those are some good cheese fires.
It's the way I did mine.
