Sidewinder

In our area you are not allowed to "bury" a junction box inside of a closed wall. They all have to be accessible somehow. It might not matter to you, but you might want to check your local electrical codes.

Fronty Owner

the "accessible junction box" is in the NEC. National code. any connection must be made in a box, all boxes must be accessable..
blind cover or plug, personal choice. I prefer to add another plug

chaikwa

That's what I will do. I can use wire nuts if I don't add plugs, as long as they're in the box, correct?

chaikwa.

Fronty Owner

and the box must be readily accessable (blind cover plate (or screw with the next owners and put a plug, switch, or cable outlet cover on it)

displacedtexan

I would say the idiot was the guy that didn't put nailgaurds on, and the inspector. Not the guy that makes the morning coffee

Can't believe no one else brought that up. IRC calls for them.

How long were the screws?

2 busy

I think i would of pulled the trim and removed the paneling instead of chopping a hole in the wall. Then replaced the wire that was damaged.

chaikwa

Hey, I didn't 'CHOP' a hole in the wall... I used a chainsaw! Makes a neater hole that way.

chaikwa.

trik396

I am an electrician and we don't use Romex around here. All line voltage wiring is pulled thru conduit. I guess that's why they say bending pipe is an artform around here... Yes it's more expensive, more time consuming, but absolutely worth it. Guess I'm old school...
Another thing.... instead of putting up nail guards (whatever they are), the whole thing IS guarded by just about anything being in a metal conduit. AND if you do happen to damage a wire somehow, you don't have to knock a hole in the wall and add a junction box, you just repull the wire from one junction box to another that are ALREADY PIPED from the original install. Much easier and makes modifying and adding circuits easier in the future. Had to vent, I hate Romex... and my house is all 12guage THHN stranded wire (mostly) some 14 and some 10guage....

jfpointer

Holy cow! That must make house renovations completely unaffordable...

chaikwa

Well, it's all fixed. Did it like most of you suggested and installed two junction boxes with blank access covers. Sorry Trik, I didn't use conduit tho. Didn't need/want to install receptacles either because there are 3 double duplex plugs just below where I made my screw-up on a seperate circuit. Two more duplex plugs no more than 3 inches above them woulda made me look like a REAL redneck!

Thanks for all the useful/helpful replies everyone. They're much appreciated, AS ALWAYS!

chaikwa.

Lary Ellis (Top)

Now that you have admitted to being an idiot, you can begin the 12 step program to cure yourself of idioism (new word).

You will find that it is quite helpful as I am on step 9 myself.......or was it step 7?....No thats not right..I failed step 6 twice and had to redo steps 3-5 before moving back to step 6.

Wait doing step 5 twice should equal a 10 and thus move me right past steps 7,8 and 9. Or is that allowed?.....if that were the case doing step 6 twice should = step 12 and thus I will have graduated...

If I do step 9 twice it will equal 18...Do I get a refund on the overage? Oh shoot now I am REALLY mixed up

PistolWhipt

Y'know .... reading this thread may explain why I have two outlets on one wall about 4 feet apart with one about 4 inches lower than the other one .... maybe the previous owner "tapped" a line and had to make an outlet repair. We always thought he was just a Dee Dee Dee ....

A while back, a Seabee buddy of mine (a Chief Builder) drilled into his living room wall to hang a picture. Found the exact location of the 220vac supply for the outlets !! He had just finished having the "yes dear, of course I know what I'm doing ... I do this for a living I'll have you know !!" speech with his fiance.

Then the lights went out ... and stayed out until the german electrician showed up the following morning .

PISTOL

trik396

Not really, but I'm sure it's more expensive up here in the big city. Union electricians make around $35 an hour and a contractor would bid a job at close to $100 an hour.

jfpointer

I was thinking collateral damage as well. If a fellow had to rip out a bunch of plaster walls to run conduit in an older house, the restoration in addition to the electrical work would get expensive pretty quickly.

trik396

Anything around here that has plaster walls has some pretty old electric that would need total replacement anyway. My original house was built in 1883 and a few after that were late 1890's to early 1900's. When you see the cloth covered wires that crumble as soon as you touch them, you know it's time for a gut-rehab. Most of those old houses had pipe or a combination of pipe and flexible conduit (metallic greenfield or BX) already buried in the walls. We have never had romex here. Honestly I think I touched romex one time in a newer suburban home.