How do I install an inground pool light and niche?

Before you start

Important: Pentair's instructions for its IntelliBrite lights, for example, require installation by a licensed or certified electrician or a qualified pool service professional. Always disconnect power to the light at the circuit breaker before servicing it. Many pool lights are designed to operate only when fully submerged, so do not switch the light on until it is underwater.

Before you buy

• Buy a niche and light designed to work together. Pentair, for example, specifies that only its own underwater light fixtures be used with its niches, for proper bonding and grounding.
• Inground pool lights come in LED and incandescent, and in 12V and 120V. A 12V light needs a 12V transformer to operate.
• Read the niche and light instructions before you start. They list the electrical code requirements for how deep the light sits, where the junction box goes, and how the niche is bonded.

What the job involves

1. Plan where the lights will go and buy a matching niche and light.
2. Mount the niche in the pool wall, inserted from inside the pool, at the depth its instructions specify.
3. Run conduit from the back of the niche to a junction box above the water level, placed where the instructions and your local code require.
4. Bond the niche to the other metal items around the pool, as the niche instructions describe.
5. On a vinyl liner pool, once the liner is in, cut it out along the inside edge of the niche's sealing ring.
6. Fit the light into the niche with enough cord coiled behind it to lift the light onto the deck for service after the pool is filled. The light's instructions give the minimum length.
7. Have your electrician make the connections at the junction box.
8. Switch the light on only once it is underwater.

Steps 6 and 7 are the light installation and wiring, which Pentair says should be done by a licensed or certified electrician or a qualified pool service professional. Bonding in step 4 is electrical safety work too, so have your electrician check it. Because the niche mounts through the wall panel, plan it alongside setting your wall panels.

Shop and read more

• Inground pool lights
• Light niches and transformers
• What is the difference between a niche and a light?
• How to set the panels for your inground pool
• What is bonding and grounding?

Still need help?

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• Buying a Swimming Pool
• Customer Support and Technical Inquiries