Why do I need an electrical box?

[Don Phillipson]

The rule is not special for you but universal, so that it covers the average inexperienced handyman, i.e. reduces the chance of his burning down his own house and yours next door as well.

[pocketrocket]

I will agree that the bakelite is good, and I have seen bakelite boxes in some situations, especially older trailer houses. I feel pretty safe with them, and they are durable and I will agree about the fire safety.

But what about those flimsy blue cheap plastic boxes that everyone uses these days. Not only do they easily break when they are nailed on (the ones with nail brackets), but they are nothing but cheap soft plastic which looks like they would ignite with the smallest amount of flame. It looks like the same plastic they make kids toys from. Besides the flame issue, the screw holes are not threaded. They are a major hassle to get the screws into, and if an outlet is removed several times the plastic strips and screws do not hold, or the plastic breaks at the screws. In all the years I have done wiring, I have never had to replace a metal box. If the screw holes stripped, I just re-tapped them. If those cheap plastic things break or strip, the whole wall will have to be torn apart, (all of that to save a few pennies).

I helped a neighbor wire his garage and he bought these cheap blue boxes. I hated everything about them. They dont even have round knockouts for cable clamps. The whole concept seems cheap and junky. I hate everything about them.

As far as the jacket on romex being flame retardent, I disagree. Where I live, we have to burn our garbage, unless we want to drive 12 miles to the town dumpster, which is locked half the time. So, I burn anything that will burn. I have takes the stripped off jacket after wiring something and tossed it into the fire. It burns hot and fast leaving a dense black smoke. While a garbage fire is intense, so is an overheated wire. I cant see that stuff NOT bursting into flame in the event a wire gets a direct short and a breaker fails. At least the old BX and conduit installations were encased in metal, which would get hot, but would not flare up.

No loss. I like my metal boxes.

The government is NOT God. They are often wrong, and far too often bribed by big businesses. Money talks....... Look at how long it took Toyota to actually take action about their defective cars. I wonder how much they paid the govt. to hush up.......

And what happens if in a few years the govt. find that the plastic boxes are not safe. Will they force everyone to rip apart their walls to replace them. The old metal boxes have been around since wiring was first installed in homes. It's reliable. Even the old knob and tube wiring was safer. Those porcelain insulators going thru every piece of wood was very safe. The downfall back then was that flammable cloth/wax insulation on the wires.

[Real Pisser]

DEAR TROLL,

are you a walnut or a cocoanut? or another kind?

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[RonB]

Doesn't matter. He done good.....Got us going with this one! :^}

[mkirsch1]

Oh, so you can tell if something will burn just by looking at it eh?

FOAD, troll.

[HeyBub]

So you agree that SOME plastic will not burn. Well, that's a start.

I'm telling you that Underwriter's Laboratories says they WILL NOT BURN. If you don't believe my reporting or the UL folks, go buy one of the damn things (19¢) and go to work on it with a cigarett lighter. No luck? Try a propane torch. Still no luck? Okay, break out the acetylene apparatus!

Report back on your scientific experiement.

Almost ANYTHING will burn if subjected to enough heat, even a human body. If the house catches fire, I have no doubt that the insulation will disappear. The operative rule, though, is will the object SUPPORT combustion. That is, will it burn on its own without being constantly subjected to an external source?

There is nothing, NOTHING, involved in electrical distribution that will support combustion. Not plastic boxes, not insulation on wires, not electrical outlets, not wire nuts. Nothing. Period.

As I said earlier, if you doubt this absolute statement, try it yourself. And throwing a hunk of insulation inside a 2000° kiln is not the test.

I agree metal boxes are reliable and have a long history of excellent use. So are slate roofs. But there are other considerations: cost, weight, ease of installation, and so on. The difference in price for one box is de minimus - say $1.50 vs thirty cents. But if you're putting fifty boxes in each new house and you're building a thousand homes a year, pretty soon we're talking about real money.

And yes, if found unsafe, there may be agitation to rip out walls. It's been done with aluminum wiring and asbestos.

[The Daring Dufas]

Have you taken a plastic electrical box and put a lit match to it? Anything can be incinerated but if you take a propane torch to a plastic electrical box and set a spot on fire, it will go out as soon as you remove the flame. It will not support combustion, the same as plastic electrical insulation. However,it will be consumed by flames if it's thrown into a fire that's fueled by something else.

TDD

[The Daring Dufas]

I actually know people who are that stupid/cheap.

TDD

[John Gilmer]

This isn't EXACTLY what I saw but it gives the idea.