Heavy lamp hanging from ceiling?

[tinpanalley]

I recently got a lovely lamp from someone (15lbs) that's meant to hang from a ceiling. I couldn't allow it to get discarded. But when I got it home I realised that it feels like something that's maybe too heavy to hang from our drywall ceiling. It's meant to hang and be plugged in, not be attached to a ceiling light fixture. This is new to me, is there some kind of limit for what can hang from drywall weight-wise? I dont know how to identify where the joists are. I suppose another thing I could do is hang it from a 12" bracket of the wall?

 

[Greenman]

So it's a swag light, those were very popular in the early 70's. Put a heavy hook into a joist and it will be fine. I wouldn't trust a toggle for that much weight.

 

[mindless1]

I dont know how to identify where the joists are.

Just get a stud finder and use that to find the joist. If you're really picky about location then you could cut out some drywall, put in a cross-piece of 2x4 between two joists, and patch it up. You could also run wiring from an existing ceiling light socket if you can live with it between the two joists or are willing to tear more of the ceiling up to run cross-joist to a new location. Is there a finished room above that one or an unfinished attic? If an unfinished attic then it's simple, without a stud finder to just poke a tiny hole for location from above, right next to the joist and knowing the width of the joist, to hit the center of it to mount the light or put in a cross-brace and put the little orientation hole in the drywall below it.

Do you intend to place it where a ceiling fixture is, to take the place of a light that the fixture would otherwise provide? If so then just get an adapter like this, and then if you already have a wall switch to control that ceiling fixture circuit, then you still have it to control your new hanging lamp:

Leviton 660-Watt Lamp Holder to Outlet Adapter, White R54-00125-00W - The Home Depot

Provide the exclusive and ultimate addition to your electrical application by selecting this affordable Leviton Lamp Holder to Outlet Adapter, White.

www.homedepot.com

Unfortunately due to what looks like a closed chamber design, it would probably make the lifespan of LED and CFL bulbs too short and then should be used with incandescents only... or is there already something custom in it? It would be possible to rig up some LED strips to work, just not a standard edison socketed bulb w/integral driver circuit. Something more like an LED strip, commonly spec'd for 12V might work okay by spreading the heat out. You could mount 4 of them on each side of a piece of square aluminum tubing with 3M thermal tape, thermal epoxy, or heatsink grease if the strips provide for mounting screws/bolts, though IDK if that's the look you're going for, how much the globe would diffuse the origin of each spot point of light from each LED.

 

[Greenman]

I recently got a lovely lamp from someone (15lbs) that's meant to hang from a ceiling. I couldn't allow it to get discarded. But when I got it home I realised that it feels like something that's maybe too heavy to hang from our drywall ceiling. It's meant to hang and be plugged in, not be attached to a ceiling light fixture. This is new to me, is there some kind of limit for what can hang from drywall weight-wise? I dont know how to identify where the joists are. I suppose another thing I could do is hang it from a 12" bracket of the wall?

I missed that you don't know how to find the joist. The quick, cheap, and easy method is with a magnet. Use it to find 2 or three nails in the ceiling and draw a line between them. If the nails are roughly 16" or more apart, you're crossing the joist.