Outlet in the middle of the floor

[MiamiCuse]

I am thinking of custom making a large table (about 120" long by 48" wide) in the dinning room that will actually protrude about 1/3 of it into the kitchen. One end of it will serve as an extra island counter for the kitchen. Since this table will be in the middle of the space, I think I will need an outlet in case I want to plug in and charge a cell phone, or plug in a laptop to work on things, may be a juicer etc...

Only problem is the floor is a 4" thick concrete slab and the nearest wall is 12 feet 2 inches away from the proposed outlet location.

I am not too excited about trenching 12 feet of concrete to put in a PVC pipe for underground wiring, but I don't think there is another way around it. I have seen some very flat 12/2 cables that are rated for outdoor UG use but I am not sure. I will be using stone tiles in the kitchen and those flat cables may be a possibility but I don't know if that is a good idea.

Another option is to go from the top, then put in a decorative pole from ceiling to floor punching through the table and the wires go inside, I could even do phone and cat5 cables in it too.

Thoughts?

MC

[James]

Hmmmmmm......... i am not a contractor or much of a handyman, so this may be silly, but.........

Instead of thinking about cutting through 4 inches of concrete and laying pvc pipe down, why can't you rent a concrete cutter and just cut a 1/2 inch slit in the concrete, sufficient to lay down UG wire (or whatever would meet the code) into the slit ??

Any reason why this would not work ?

James

[Robert Allison]

It would work, but it is not to code. Any wiring (with the one notable exception of grounding cable) in concrete must be in a conduit.

[James]

Hmmmmmm. good point Robert. So, could the slit idea still be followed, but simply be large enough to accomodate the metal conduit ?

James

[BobK207]

The "pole", though perhaps less attractive, seems like a lot less work and a lot fewer potential problems downstream.

Crawl spaces rock! :)

cheers Bob

[hallerb]

ire (or whatever

well a concrete saw cuts well, so use conduit.

its wierd when people need to go thru concrete they think it impossible.......

with the proper tools its no biggie

[metspitzer]

Flat cable works fine, especially on the side with no traffic.

[metspitzer]

This kind of flat cable

[cshenk]

"MiamiCuse" wrote

I actually like this idea better. I am sure one end f that table is in a spot where extra light would be good so you can make it almost look a bit like a 'floor lamp' with light extensions on it, then discrete outlets all along the base where it meets the table. Say, something like a square 'pole' about 4inches on all sides? Then take 2 or 4 decorative lights such as you might see on a ceiling fan and put them about it. You could even put a switch or dimmer for them on the pole.

If the lighting assembly fit better in the livingroom portion, don't dispair. You can run some outlet from under the table then and pop it back up at the kitchen end. (Be sure it's set so that kitchen common liquids you may have on that ned of the table cant get in. Flush to the table top wouldnt be safe though might sound nifty.

[BillGill]

If you do this and want to put in the signal wiring it needs to be separated from the power wiring by a metal separator. This is for safety and noise suppression.

Bill Gill

[trader4]

I've recently seen some new construction where the builder chose to use the pole idea with a center island. It looked absolutely terrible. In an otherwise beautiful kitchen, it's the one thing that immediately draws your eye.

Not saying there might not be designs this could work with. But unless I was absolutely sure it looks good and doesn't detract at all, I would not do it. As others have pointed out, cutting a channel for a conduit into concrete really isn't difficult and shouldn't be a design tradeoff consideration for something that you're going to have to live with, deal with a resale, etc.

[Robert Allison]

Absolutely. One would need to go deep enough to accomodate the

90s, but that is how it is done. The conduit can stop just out of the concrete. I would go with pvc conduit instead of metal.

[gfretwell]

If you are only using the raceway as a duct you can use "cables" in the same pipe. For exaample you can put a 3/4" piece of PVC conduit in the slab and pull a Romex and a Cat 5 through it as long as you don't break into the Romex until it gets separated from the Cat 5. Cable jackets are separation

[BillGill]

It doesn't keep you from getting noise in the circuits. You should never run signal cables in the same race way with power circuits. You may get away with it for a while, but you never know when it will fail.

Bill Gill

[trader4]

What exactly fails after a while? If it's a coaxial cable, the cable has a metal shield which is there to form a faraday cage around the signal conductor and block external interference. It's the whole point of making it a coaxial cable.

[gfretwell]

Urban legend That is not a problem if you really have "signal cable" and not bell wire. Twisted pair is very tolerant of any outside noise, Coax is even better.

[MiamiCuse]

I just hate the dust...Last time I cut some solid concrete...was a mess.