In the ceiling there is no light box and I can't insert nails or screws.
I need to install a square LED light fixture, weighting 1.4 lbs, that is fed by the outlet. Maximum I can do is to damage the painting when I decide to remove this light fixture, because I can paint again later.
The wire is very light in weight and is already in place using a double sided tape.
All that is left is to be able to "glue" this square LED fixture on the ceiling.
What ideas to you have to keep this square LED light fixture in place?
I thought about these Command Strips, however I think they will fell in a couple of days, they are not meant to have force pushing horizontally, only downwards. They are not meant to be used in ceilings.
I also thought about these strong, permanent mounting strips (the red ones)?
I also thought about using a little of silicone, do you guys think it would work? Silicone has helped me in many ways before, not sure if it is effective in painted wall/ceiling.
The main question here is how to attach, in a secure way, this flat square LED light on the ceiling, without damaging the ceiling when installing or removing (damaging the paint is fine), probably using some kind of adhesive.
Any ideas are welcome!
Thank you!
Best Answer
High-tack adhesive will hold your ceiling light.
It has to be tacky enough to hold it before it hardens, or the thing will fall off, taking the wires with it, and like any proper toast it will fall buttery face down on the floor and lather sticky goop all over.
A water-based adhesive like "liquid nails" makes "accidental spills" much easier to remove but it is not very tacky and doesn't adhere well to non porous surfaces. Perhaps an acrylic caulk or water-based silicone would be a better choice.
Problem is, proper adhesive that is strong enough to hold the light in place will also take large craters out of the ceiling material when you pull it out. MS polymer adhesive will pull out even wood fibers. This MS polymer stuff is extra strong, and impossible to remove from anything, hardened or not. Acrylic is flimsier, so that's easier to remove.
In order to use the minimum amount of adhesive you might want to hold the light in place while it hardens, so as not to rely on the tackiness. Then to remove it you can slip a blade behind the light to cut the adhesive. This will work better if you think ahead and insert a spacer behind the light to leave a few mm thickness of adhesive.
The best combo is to use sticky foam tape as the spacer, that will hold the light in place while the acrylic caulk hardens. With just the sticky tape it'll probably fall off after a week, but by then it should be hardened.
However.
As a landlord, I'd very much prefer you drill holes and use proper anchors. If it's sheetrock, and the light isn't heavy, then screws will hold it just fine.
It is much easier to fill and hide a hole drilled by a tenant than to fix whatever other evil schemes they come up with to avoid making holes. So I tell them to make holes, but please not in the tiles.