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This is in a ten year old house. The builder put in a black 4” shallow round electrical box to mount the ceiling dome light fixture on in one of the rooms. It is mounted on a joist. I’m trying to replace the light fixture with a ceiling fan.

While removing the existing electrical box, in addition to the usual black, white, etc. wires going, up I found that it had a thick black cord attached on the flip side of it (attic side). It is like attached/welded on to the box and I don’t know how to remove the box because of the cord.

Does anyone know what this cord could be?

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  • Pictures would help a lot.
    – JACK
    Commented yesterday
  • 1
    more pictures would help more. what sort of light did you remove? how was it all connected?
    – Jasen
    Commented yesterday
  • Show us inside the box, please. My guess is that the white cable is clamped to the pancake box and is holding it in place. The black may be just molding flash, and a red herring.
    – isherwood
    Commented yesterday

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I believe the "thick black cord" is the sheathing around the wires making the cable running to the box.

It is supposed to be anchored to the box, but there should be some room to release it. In a plastic box the box itself usually has the anchor, which is just a tab squeezing the cable.

You can pry it off or break the plastic around it. In these type of incidents, I like to use 2 pair of heavy pliers to work the plastic making it break around the cable. Of course be sure the power is off.

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  • Thanks for that. I went to the attic but couldn’t get to the box because the area above it is blocked off and the ceiling is too low. The black cord seems to be attached to something in the attic because the box feels pretty secure even after unscrewing all the screws. I know for sure the wires aren’t going inside the black tube. I will try to look for a way to release it from the bedroom
    – poojnf
    Commented yesterday
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    Sheathing on any typical light fixture cable wouldn't be black in the US (something like #6 AWG is a different story). @poojnf are you somewhere else in the world?
    – Huesmann
    Commented yesterday
  • @Huesmann Some types of older electrical cable was sheathed in rubber, which was a uniform black. Could still be US.
    – Machavity
    Commented yesterday
  • I was recently working in the attic of a 1987 built home. The12/3 cable was sheathed in black.
    – RMDman
    Commented yesterday
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    @Ish, I think I see the white cable too. Maybe it's me but I'd just take some side cutters and cut that black thing and be done with it.
    – RMDman
    Commented yesterday

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