he checked the code and said yes I sure can, as then I dont' have to count the marettes. I caught him off guard by asking if I could just take the marettes off and solder and tape the wires. My inspector caught it and said I had to replace the boxes. in some cases I had used outlet boxes that were daisy chained so they had 2 pieces of romex entering. each Marette ( wire nut) is counted as one wire. in order to pass there is a relationship with the square inches inside the box and the number of wires drawn in. a piece of a highway sign or something perhaps? maybe just notching the studs and installing a steel plate on one side would be ok. If it's old and grandfathered and a whole house you might not want to open that can of worms but if you are doing new wiring and might want it inspected I'd pay attention to the code. I guess the studs are really no weaker installed either way and you might need to know about drafting or engineering to really know the code on how to figure out the allowed load. The house was insulated and had siding on the outside so maybe the wiring was run on the outside. this house has some special needs as you cant' fit boxes so everything has the surface mounted boxes. We have one of those cedar homes with about 3 inch walls, they are cedar and not hollow made by pan abode. when I rewired I worked woith my brother who is an electrician and he pointed out there is code saying how close to the drywall attachment surface it can be. they probably use some sort of protective track I'm not completely sure. Someone like Atco trailers or whoever makes house trailers probably encounters this sort of thing. Where this distance cannot be maintained, the cable or raceway shall be protected from penetration by screws or nails by a steel plates(s) or bushing(s), at least 1.6 mm (1/16 in.) thick, and of appropriate length and width installed to cover the area of the wiring.Įxception No.1: Steel plates shall not be required to protect rigid metal conduit, intermediate metal conduit, rigid nonmetallic conduit, or electrical metallic tubing. Holes shall be bored so that the edge of the hole is not less than 32 mm (1 1/4 in.) from the nearest edge of the wood member. this is national electric code, yea it might vary from area to area but I bet ti's similar in canada and the US
If you look here the regs are spelled out. i was able to cover the wire with a steel plate to prevent it getting hit by a screw Im not an electrician but when I wired my house there was one spot where I needed to run a cable where it was against a beam and drilling the beam wasn't practical. I can check for a top plate if I remember, that I can see since the ceiling in the bath had to come down due to previous water damage. I imagine it was a space saving method since that bathroom is only 4 1/2" wide and every inch counts! All the walls I've seen (that I had to take plaster down on) had base and top plates here-however that wall didn't need to be touched so I'm not sure if it does or not.
My "skinny" wall is just a divider, it's not bearing at all. Can you see above (IE in an attic) or below (crawlspace, basement/cellar) the wall? Usually there are some signs if it's a load bearing wall there, like extra reinforcement below (the two interior walls at the Bungalow Project that are load bearing have triple thick beams below in one place and a wall below in another) and the ceiling joists that rest on the top plate of those walls are staggered (for instance the one wall is between the dining room and living room, so the living room ceiling joists end about a foot or so into the dining room after they overlap the top plate and the dining room joists go about a foot into the living room ceiling).