Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.Lamp post project. Last summer I purchased a nice-looking, but inexpensive solar-powered triple lamp post in a planter for the front of the house. I dug a hole to place it in the ground and created a small rock garden to surround it. Sadly it was not so much inexpensive as flimsy and cheap. After a month or two it started wobbling back and forth. It continued to worsen over the winter and finally, in a wind storm in February, it snapped. Pieces were scattered all over the front flower bed and all that was left was a small nub sticking out of the rocks. The base was still rock solid, the rest? Not so much.After searching for a replacement, I settled on a taller, much more robust alternative that had just a single lantern at the top. The catch? It was not solar, but designed to be wired directly to household current. I decided that I could probably, with some soldering, adapt it for use with a short outdoor-rated single outlet extension cord plugged into a grounded outlet. That part was pretty easy. I drilled a hole near the base and fed through the wires from the lamp post. I extended the ground, attached to a ground screw inside the base, to match the length of the other wires. I cut the end off the extension cord, then connected the load, neutral and ground wires to those coming from the lamp post with solder and waterproof shrink tubing. I had previously slipped a nicely tight tension relieving weather proof grommit over the extension cord then fed it all back into the post, popping the grommit into the newly drilled hole and sealing it all with outdoor-rated clear silicon.Then I took off the base and filled a new planter with fresh concrete. I chose to embed three bolts right into the concrete instead of drilling holes and using the included anchors. After waiting a bit over two weeks for the concrete to dry and cure, it is finally bolted down and finished. It is vastly more solid than our last one. Even better, it can always be unplugged and moved if we change our mind.Read moreRead less
