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rosi_cheeks

Rewiring 21 light chandelier

rosi_cheeks
13 years ago

Hello!

I have 2 questions regarding a very large, very old, 21 light chandelier I am refurbishing. This lamp has no arms or central hub. It is essentially 3 tiered rings with chains between tiers. It was wired with a hot going around the first tier, up a chain, around the next tier, up a chain and so on. The neutral wire did the same.

The problem was there were 4 wires (hot going up to the socket and back down and the neutral going up to the socket and back down) all trying to go thru this extremely small hole. I had to drill some of the old wiring out! So my first question is: Can I use a clamshell splice to just run 1 hot wire all around the first tier and splice up 1 wire for each socket? Then go to the next tire and do the same? I would have to do the same with the neutral. This would mean I would have two clamshell splices below each socket. Hmmmmm.... not sure how that would look from down below.....

2nd question and more importantly, what gauge wire should I use? I'm guessing 40watt bulbs will suffice. So 21 lights at 40watts= 840 watts. 840watts/120volts=7amps

But what if a few years from now, someone comes along and replaces all the bulbs with 60 watt. Shouldn't I account for that possibility? So my question is, what gauge wire do you think I should use?

Thank you!!

Rosi

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