Replacing track lights

[obstinate]

Hi, I have some track lights in my living room that are set up in a weird way. I went to Home Depot today to get new ones. The old ones are warped and discolored, and use very energy inefficient halogens. I want to replace them with a newer track that has LEDs.

Here are pictures of the situation I have currently.

The home depot guy (who is apparently also an electrician) tells me that the way it's currently set up is out of code. Romex is only allowed inside walls and other enclosed spaces. He also said that these old tracks that aren't grounded aren't sold any more, so there's no question of getting new LED heads for the old track.

He said that there are two main things I could do that would be in code.

• Replace the plate I have with a standard plug, and then buy a cordset attachment for the new track.
• Use wiremolds to run the wire to the end of the track. I also have to use a different type of wire than what's pictured here . . . THH-something.
• Move the tracks to where the boxes are and use the in-track mounting.
• Move the boxes to where the tracks are.

R.e. my options, 3 isn't great because the lights would probably not descend enough to avoid having a shadow cast be the beams. 4 is I guess impossible for me to do on my own. I'm also worried that, since the beams are structural, drilling out the necessary space for the box would compromise their strength. In any case, it would almost certainly be much more expensive and time consuming.

So I'm left with two options. I believe that the wire molding would be a little more attractive, but with so many elbows required, it might not be that much better. And it would take a lot more work.

I have two main questions. What would you do? And, is there anything beyond what the Home Depot electrician said? I mean, I know the basics (white to white, black to black, bare or green to green, turn off the breaker before starting work, measure twice cut once, etc.). But things like, "don't use romex outside wall cavities," I was not aware of.

[obstinate]

Also maybe I'm using the wrong word when I say romex. In any case, the guy seemed very sure that wiring directly to wire nuts was not permitted. I can kind of understand why this would be, since if I accidentally got something hooked on the existing wires and pulled hard, you could have a situation where the live ends would be exposed and could contact and spark.

[Miss Piggy]

Hard to tell exactly what you're showing in the pics. Where is that junction box located? It doesn't look like it's behind the white plate in the 2nd picture. ???

Have you considered a more modern track option such as this one?  https://www.google.com/search?q=text+site%3Amrmoneymustache.com

You get the "starter track" then buy other parts to complete it. Warning: it's attractive (to me, anyway), but our projected ended up getting pricier than anticipated.

Here's another option that might be interesting for you: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OSZKP8U/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A786TE60PH9V5
("street name" for this is spider chandelier. There are many more options other than the one I've posted here.)

[paddedhat]

Really competent advice from the HD guy, which is nice. As an electrician, my first choice would be to see if I could locate the track over the junction box and determine if one of the many hundreds of available light fixtures would suit my needs. Second choice would be a receptacle, and cord set-up, which is legal, and far less aesthetically offensive than wiremold will be.  Wiremold is, IMHO, a no. It's expensive, difficult to work with, and looks like shit. As for relocating a junction box to the beam, it really isn't a practical option, since you shouldn't drill a structural beam, and chopping a recess in the bottom to hide a box is a really bad idea.

[obstinate]

Yes, the picture of the junction box is what's behind the white plate in the picture.

Your link is not showing any track lighting for me. That chandelier would not work in this room -- this is the living room and it would hang too low into the space where people are walking, but thank you for the idea. Also, the whole idea is to replace my existing incandescents with LEDs. That chandelier would be moving the wrong direction :P. I will post new pictures that show the room's current disposition more clearly.

[obstinate]

Really competent advice from the HD guy, which is nice. As an electrician, my first choice would be to see if I could locate the track over the junction box and determine if one of the many hundreds of available light fixtures would suit my needs. Second choice would be a receptacle, and cord set-up, which is legal, and far less aesthetically offensive than wiremold will be.  Wiremold is, IMHO, a no. It's expensive, difficult to work with, and looks like shit. As for relocating a junction box to the beam, it really isn't a practical option, since you shouldn't drill a structural beam, and chopping a recess in the bottom to hide a box is a really bad idea.

Wiremold: no. Got it.

Here are two pictures that show the layout of the room. You can see that the junction boxes are between the two beams. Most of the light fixtures I've looked at would have trouble fitting in that narrow area. That's why I was planning to replace the tracks with newer tracks. Do you have any ideas for light fixtures that would look good here? They'd need to hang down low enough to clear the beams, otherwise there will be shadows. But not so low that they get in the way of people walking through the room.

It doesn't need to look stellar. I'm planning to sell the house in six months or so, and it'll be somebody else's problem then. I just don't want to have to sit in the dark in the living room all winter because of how insanely much power those halogens use. Plus, I'd like to have something that at least looks acceptable and not totally dilapidated when I do get around to selling the thing.

[sokoloff]

Get a white cordset and put a white outlet in the box.

No buyer will notice nor think twice about it and you'll be done inside of an hour, including mounting the new tracks.

[paddedhat]

Get a white cordset and put a white outlet in the box.

No buyer will notice nor think twice about it and you'll be done inside of an hour, including mounting the new tracks.

Absolutely!  Once you add the info. about selling the house shortly, this is your best choice.  You can find a nice single receptacle and matching cover in white.  You then need a white, three wire replacement cord, or you can just cut the female end off of a white, grounded extension cord, and use the rest. Good luck.

[Jack]

I personally think relocating the track to between the beams is the way to go. Track lighting on a beam is fugly enough to begin with IMO, but when you've got twin beams like that and you're asymmetrically mounting it on one of them that just makes it even worse!

Do you have any ideas for light fixtures that would look good here? They'd need to hang down low enough to clear the beams, otherwise there will be shadows. But not so low that they get in the way of people walking through the room.

It doesn't need to look stellar. I'm planning to sell the house in six months or so, and it'll be somebody else's problem then.

I'd suggest getting some basic track pendant lights. Adjust the cord length so that the center of the light bulb is at the same elevation as the center of your clerestory windows. Your design style is modern enough that you might even be able to get away leaving the bulbs bare instead of using shades (but the realtor might ask you to swap your LEDs for Edison bulbs for showings in that case).

[sokoloff]

One other thing: nonmetallic cable ("Romex") is allowed to be exposed, but when exposed must be protected if exposed to physical damage and "shall closely follow the surface of the building finish or of running boards."

So, if you do elect to move the track to between the beams, you would be permitted to run NM cable along the surface if needed, provided you kept it tight to the ceiling where it would not be subject to physical damage and would closely follow the surface.

[Gibbelstein]

Agreed that Option 1 is the easiest and, especially since you're planning to leave soon, the best.  Plus you can use my favorite justification for not doing work on a project I'm not keeping: "What if they next person doesn't like it?"  If you start hacking at the beams or whatever you make it harder for them to make any changes if they want in the future.

But, for a completely unnecessary alternative, if you really wanted to relocate the track (Option 3) you could use something like these extensions to drop the lights down  below the beams, but it would get pricy because you need one for each light (so, times 9 at least from your pictures).
http://www.homedepot.com/p/Glomar-18-in-Black-Track-Lighting-Extension-Wand-HD-TP163/202501652