I am remodeling an old stone house and am looking for some sort of decorative electrical conduit or raceway.
I seen a show on This Old House at one time that showed a decorative raceway / conduit that had the wire already inside it and snapped together with plug boxes and all that fit right on the outside of the wall.
I tried going to the This Old House web page but I have to have a password to post a question to them and couldn't find out how to get one.
Now I cannot find anything like that. Can anyone help me locate a supplier of such things or at least a suggestion of google search perimeters that would bring up suppliers?
Electrical supply houses are now selling painted EMT, (Electrical Metallic Tubing), in a variety of colors. You can paint the conduit boxes and fittings to match. If you use the metal Wiremold product, don't forget to install the special bushings to protect the wiring.
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Once you learn how to handle Wiremold it will become easy install quickly and neatly. It can also be painted to match any decor.
[8~{} Uncle Monster
Thanks all, but Plugmold by Wiremold doesn't look quite like what I seen. That is not quite as nice looking or as easy to install as what I seen on the show.
If this is a nice as I can get, I am thinking about routering out wood and covering the wiring with that to make my own decorative raceway.
If I went that route, would I have to use conduit first, or could I just use the wood as a conduit?
If there was a short circuit that caused the wire to burn, it could start a fire in the wood. The metal raceway not only protects against fire, it provides another grounding path. If the insulation on the hot wire somehow fails, it will short against the metal conduit and trip the circuit breaker. If you want to rout out a channel in the wood for wiring, you can use MC (Metal Clad) cable. MC has a spiral wound flexible metal covering over wire. Flex is basically the same thing but without wire, you pull your own wire through it. These products are available at the all the big box stores, like Lowe's and Home Depot.
I thought about using conduit inside the routed wood, but then I thought about the fact that there is no conduit inside wood walls.
Isn't it as dangerous to run wire threw a hole in a 2 x 4 that is sandwiched inside wood paneling and surrounded by Styrofoam insulation, as it is to run it outside the wall under a routed 2 x 4?
Then there is the plastic conduit. Doesn't that burn too?
I agree that running it inside standard mettle conduit and covering it with wood would be safest, but isn't my plan as safe as standard methods for homes?
Nail plates are commonly used to protect Romex and MC cables that are run through wood studs. Here is a site that shows examples of wiring and pipes in walls:
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Plastic switch, junction boxes and PVC conduit are made with fire retardant materials.
[8~{} Uncle Monster
There you go. Just like they show in the pictures and disruptions. Nothing but insulated wire running threw holes drilled in wood sandwiched between wood paneling and commonly stuffed with Styrofoam insulation.
Often the paneling is resting right again the bent wire as it runs threw the wall.
Why is that less of a fire hazard then a board right out where you can see it, laying again sand stone or concrete, with a nice big channel routered out of the center of it?
What about making it out of 1x 4s shaped like a U so it looked like a
4 x 4 beam? That may even be legal. I've seen that done in the center of rooms before to run the wire down to a point where it was needed.
What about making my raceway out of Styrofoam backed paneling, would that be better? I could glue that together, and the Styrofoam would make it more rigid and give a bigger gluing space.
Aren't 2 x 4s also fire retardant treated?
Not trying to be argumentative with you. Just trying to tie down if it is a true hazard or just a coding violation.
I have found that many things that are coding violations due to a stated reason are in fact not valid reasons. Kind of like using boat conduit in a house.
This is precisely why I live out in the country in a county that has little or no restrictions.
When I do work for someone, I tend to follow the applicable codes and standards. The reason for this is liability. If something goes wrong and there is a fire or accident, the powers to be are always looking for someone to blame. Even out in rural areas where there may be no inspection, I will still install wiring and equipment in the proper manner. As an individual living out in the country, I suppose you can do whatever you wish but if something goes wrong and you have a fire, your insurance company may be reluctant to pay when an investigation turns up improper wiring. If you noticed, nail plates are used to protect wiring that is within one and a quarter inches of the surface. If you install Romex protected by two inches of wood, I would think that could be acceptable. A channel cut out behind a 4x4 should provide plenty of protection for Romex.
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