Light Fixtures, Fans & Faucets in Chapel Hill, NC

Damp is the local variable

Chapel Hill is wooded in a way most of the Triangle is not, and everything mounted on the outside of a house pays for it.

A fitting on an exposed wall in an open subdivision gets wet and then dries. A fitting on a north-facing Chapel Hill wall under mature canopy stays damp for days after rain, and through winter it may not get a properly dry week between November and March.

That changes what fails and in what order.

The fixings go first

This is the one people do not expect.

The fitting itself may be perfectly sound — the body intact, the lens clear, the lamp working. Meanwhile the screws holding it to the wall have been sitting in damp for fifteen years.

Ordinary steel fixings in that situation corrode, swell in their holes and seize completely. The result is a fitting that cannot be taken off the wall without cutting or drilling the fixings out, which is a nuisance discovered at exactly the moment you wanted a quick swap.

What we do about it:

• Expect it, and allow for it, on any shaded exterior fitting on an older installation
• Cut or drill out what will not come, rather than levering and destroying the mounting
• Make good the mounting arrangement behind where it has been damaged
• Put stainless fixings back in, so the next person does not have the same problem

That last one costs almost nothing and it is the whole difference in twenty years.

The same applies to any exterior hardware — hose bib brackets, conduit clips, anything screwed to a damp wall.

Damp location and wet location

The specification question, and it is worth understanding because it is the reason porch lights fill with water.

Damp location fittings are intended for covered positions that never get rained on directly — well back under a porch roof, in a genuinely sheltered soffit. They are not sealed against water entering.

Wet location fittings are intended for exposure to direct rain, spray and run-off, and are sealed accordingly.

A damp-rated fitting in a wet position takes water in through its seams and collects it in the bottom, along with a certain number of insects.

In Chapel Hill the margin is narrower than elsewhere. A position that would count as sheltered in an open subdivision is, under heavy canopy with constant humidity and driving rain finding its way in from the side, closer to wet than it looks.

Wet-rated fittings in marginal positions is the safe call here.

Related: gaskets and seals are consumables. A wet-rated fitting whose gasket has hardened and shrunk is no longer wet-rated. Replacing a perished gasket is cheap and worth doing when a lamp is changed.

Outdoor receptacles

Same climate, same principle. Outdoor outlets need weather-resistant devices and an in-use cover — the deeper kind that closes over a plug that is left in, rather than the flat flap that only closes when nothing is plugged in.

Fitting a proper cover to an existing outlet is our work. Adding a new outlet is a licensed electrician job and we will say so.

Inside the house

The older houses near campus. In the Historic District and around Glen Lennox, ceiling boxes may have no grounding conductor and insulation close to a fitting that ran hot for decades may be brittle. Both get assessed before anything is committed, and where the answer is that a circuit needs a licensed electrician, that is what you will hear. Original fittings in those houses are frequently worth rewiring rather than replacing.

Meadowmont, Southern Village and Briar Chapel. Modern grounded wiring and ordinary work — builder fittings ready to be replaced, fans going in where lights are, vanity lighting.

Bathroom extract fans

Worth mentioning here because Chapel Hill houses run damp inside as well as out.

A bathroom that stays humid grows things in the grout and the sealant, and the usual response is to clean or regrout rather than to fix the cause. The fan is the cause.

Three things matter more than the fan rating:

Where the duct goes. A fan discharging into a roof space rather than to outside is moving moisture from one part of the house to another.

How long it runs. Humidity peaks after the shower stops, so a fan that stops when somebody leaves the room has removed very little. Fifteen to twenty minutes afterwards is the target, and a timer or humidity-sensing switch does it without anyone remembering.

The duct itself. Length, sharp bends and sagging flexible duct all cut real airflow substantially.

We replace fans on an existing circuit and improve accessible ducting. New circuits go to a licensed electrician.

Ceiling fans

A fan cannot hang from an ordinary light box — several times heavier than a light fitting, and vibrating continuously. It needs a box rated for fan support, and retrofit braces fit through the existing hole.

Downrod from the ceiling height, blade balance done properly with the supplied kit.

Minor plumbing

Shut-off valves that will not close are the recurring complication and get tested before anything is dismantled. Faucet replacement with new supply lines as standard, toilet fill and flush valves, traps and seats.

Where a connection needs soldering or altering, that goes to a licensed plumber.

Rentals

Chapel Hill has more let housing than anywhere else we cover, and fixtures are a standard turnover item. One visit for a whole property is far better value than item by item.

Getting a price

Photograph the fitting and, for exterior work, a shot from a few feet back showing how sheltered the position actually is. Tell us whether the fixings look rusted — it changes how long the job takes.

Chapel Hill is about thirty-five minutes from us, with no travel surcharge.