Simple (To You) Wiring Question

Yes, it is working. On to next project.

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Rich

Are you confused yet?

I think what you have is 3 pieces of romex coming into the ceiling box for the light. Each piece of romex has a black, a white, and a ground (green or bare) wire in it. One piece goes back to the circuit breaker and provides power to the circuit, another goes to the switch so you can switch the light on and off and the third goes to the outlet.

The only diagram I could find is this one.
http://www.buildmyowncabin.com/elect...nto-light.html
It doesn't have the wire for the outlet on the diagram.

To add the outlet, connect the black wire from the outlet to the junction of the black wire that goes to the breaker and the white wire that goes to the switch, connect the white wire from the outlet to the white wire that comes from the breaker and the white wire that comes from the light, and connect all the green and bare wires together.

The white wire that goes to the switch should have a piece of black electrician's tape on both ends so the next poor fool who looks in the box will know it is hot.

Any metal boxes should have a green or bare piece of wire attached to it by a screw and the other end of the wire attached to the junction of the ground wires.

The old fixture had extra wires for the outlet compared to the new light.

The piece of romex with the ground cut off probably is the one to the switch. The old style switches don't have a ground connection so it wasn't needed back in the day. The current convention is that the switch and the metal box it is in should be attached to the ground wire to ground them. You should pull another piece of romex between the switch and the ceiling box so you can ground the switch and it's box and put in a new switch with a ground connection on it.

I'll repeat myself because I think this is important...working doesn't necessarily mean safe. It could be wired wrong and work for years before causing a problem, but that problem years from now could be very serious. If you're sure it's right, then this doesn't apply.

True, so lets confuse the man even more!!!

Find the white wire that goes with the single black wire in the box that is by itself. These two wires is your switch leg that goes to the wall switch. So you take the black wire and cap it off the with the bundle of black wires that's capped off together. This will provide power down to your switch first. Then the white wire coming back up to the light box will be switched hot, so you will need to mark it with black tape and cap it off to the black wire to your new light fixture. Then the white wire from your new fixture will cap off to the bundle of white wires which will be your return neatrul.

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r.h. in oklahoma

Raised a country boy, and will die a country boy.

Yeah, that's a better way to do it.
I was going with the assumption that he wasn't using a meter, which makes isolating circuits a hard, tedious job, especially if there are "extras" like a constant hot added for the old outlet/light combo.
I was trying not to get confused myself, thinking of all the possibilities, lol.
When I get into rewires, I like to eliminate and cap off any unused lines so I don't accidently make a mistake.
Good catch.