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I have a question about what to do with ground wires.

I am installing a new light fixture above my dining room table. Fixture comes with a ground wire obviously. Main electrical wiring has the normal black and white wire AND a bare copper wire (which I’m assuming is another ground wire).

In addition it appears that my octagonal electric junction box also has a green copper ground wire attached to box with a screw, so I now have three grounding wires. Light fixture mounting bracket has the normal green screw that I should be attaching a ground wire.

Question: Is which wire do I attach to the mounting bracket ground screw AND what to do with the other grounding wires??

Alaska Man
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Rick
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  • Otherwise, many [variations of this question](https://diy.stackexchange.com/search?page=2&tab=Relevance&q=light%20fixture%20ground%20wire) have been asked. – isherwood Jan 03 '21 at 15:54

1 Answers1

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Having all those ground wires is common because many junction boxes are nonmetal. I'm assuming yours is. The actual ground should be the bare copper ground coming into the box with the feed. Connect that ground to the green wire attached to the box. Now the box is grounded so any brackets you attach to the box and fixtures will be grounded when assembled. I like to ground the box with the bare copper wire attached directly to it with a 10-32 grounding screw and pigtail off that to the ground wires from the bracket and fixture. That way, there's no lose wires floating around in the box

JACK
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