My family owns a small fourplex/quad/quadruplex rental property in Richmond, Virginia. I handle most of the day to day management and maintenance concerns. The building is two story, with two apartments on each floor and a two story lobby/stair hall in the center. Each apartment has it's own electrical service. (Four panels, total) Before I say anything else: almost nothing in the building, which was built in 1923, quite meets modern code. So my first and foremost concern is not: "does it meet code?" but "is it reasonably safe?" and "can I make it safer?"
This is where this post starts to get strange: The lobby has a two-bulb light fixture on each floor. Each light fixture actually contains two separate light kits/sets of wires: One which connects to a circuit in the apartment on the left, and one which connects to a circuit in the apartment on the right. Because of the age of the building, there are no junction boxes, the wires come through a hole in the plaster behind the fixtures. There is also no ground wire for these lights or grounding anywhere nearby that could be tied into. The circuits for the lights are 15 amp and also appear to carry living room and dining room lights, but nothing else (however, none of the panels is even wired the same way due to numerous repairs and modifications over the years...)
First question: How dangerous is this? On the one hand, the setup has been the same for 92 years without any problems,; but on the other hand it just doesn't look right!
Currently, each of these bulbs is on a switch operated from inside the tenant's apartment. There is no way to turn on the lights from the hallway. I don't really know what code has to say about the matter, but intuitively this seems dangerous as it is a stairwell with no operable lighting. Most of my tenants refuse to keep the lights on at night. I had attempted to simply flip the existing switch boxes (so that they open into the lobby rather than the apartment) and install an occupancy sensor, so that the current setup could be preserved, but found that since the switches don't have neutral or ground wires there are virtually no occupancy sensors which will function correctly in this situation (they have to be able to draw a small amount of power to run the sensor)
Instead, I decided to install motion sensor lights, specifically this model: http://www.lowes.com/pd_22246-85538-SH-4300-BK-A___?productId=3565438&pl=1&Ntt=motion+sensor+lights. It's not the prettiest thing, but it's acceptable and will get the job done.
My second question is - can I preserve the current two-circuit/two service setup in a single motion sensor fixture? Or is this dangerous in some way? What can go wrong?
Finally, at least two of these fixtures can be chained together in such a way as to cause either sensor to turn on both/all of the lights. This is desirable, as the fixtures do not appear to have much range vertically/due to the layout of the hallway
My third question is: can I chain the sensors together even if the lights themselves are on different circuits?
My goal here is to have lights that turn on when needed but don't waste my tenants electricity, and to keep the cost evenly distributed
This is where this post starts to get strange: The lobby has a two-bulb light fixture on each floor. Each light fixture actually contains two separate light kits/sets of wires: One which connects to a circuit in the apartment on the left, and one which connects to a circuit in the apartment on the right. Because of the age of the building, there are no junction boxes, the wires come through a hole in the plaster behind the fixtures. There is also no ground wire for these lights or grounding anywhere nearby that could be tied into. The circuits for the lights are 15 amp and also appear to carry living room and dining room lights, but nothing else (however, none of the panels is even wired the same way due to numerous repairs and modifications over the years...)
First question: How dangerous is this? On the one hand, the setup has been the same for 92 years without any problems,; but on the other hand it just doesn't look right!
Currently, each of these bulbs is on a switch operated from inside the tenant's apartment. There is no way to turn on the lights from the hallway. I don't really know what code has to say about the matter, but intuitively this seems dangerous as it is a stairwell with no operable lighting. Most of my tenants refuse to keep the lights on at night. I had attempted to simply flip the existing switch boxes (so that they open into the lobby rather than the apartment) and install an occupancy sensor, so that the current setup could be preserved, but found that since the switches don't have neutral or ground wires there are virtually no occupancy sensors which will function correctly in this situation (they have to be able to draw a small amount of power to run the sensor)
Instead, I decided to install motion sensor lights, specifically this model: http://www.lowes.com/pd_22246-85538-SH-4300-BK-A___?productId=3565438&pl=1&Ntt=motion+sensor+lights. It's not the prettiest thing, but it's acceptable and will get the job done.
My second question is - can I preserve the current two-circuit/two service setup in a single motion sensor fixture? Or is this dangerous in some way? What can go wrong?
Finally, at least two of these fixtures can be chained together in such a way as to cause either sensor to turn on both/all of the lights. This is desirable, as the fixtures do not appear to have much range vertically/due to the layout of the hallway
My third question is: can I chain the sensors together even if the lights themselves are on different circuits?
My goal here is to have lights that turn on when needed but don't waste my tenants electricity, and to keep the cost evenly distributed