Overboarded wall, drywall backboxes?

I quite like the plastic ones that clip into a correctly sized hole in the plasterboard, given enough room behind.

They fix firmly given a well sized hole, but I don't like the thick front lip on them, makes the face-plates seem to be floating by a mm or two ...

This is part of the reason I ditched them, management insisted on fancy sockets (Trendiswitch) and they are just about exactly the same size as the backbox, it all looked slightly untidy.

They are supposed to be installed before the skim coat.

In the cases I've used them, there was no skim coat, just tape/fill/sand the tapered joints. It didn't occur to me to fill and sand around sockets/switches, which might work ...

So the plasterer can render them invisible?

Owain

I have that issue when I fit a new back box to an existing skimmed & painted stud and partition wall.

What I do is use a flat bed sander to sand down all four sides by a couple of mm so that they then become slightly smaller than the faceplate. I also round off the corners as well.

The back box lips will then fit inside the back of the face plate and the face plate then sits against the painted skimmed plaster rather than float in mid air.

That had never occurred, i've been known to take them out before the plasterer comes and put them back in afterwards. Doh.

Fact remains that they rarely are. ;-)

Possibly part of 'first fix' in new builds?

Not on my shift.

Wooden noggins and metal back boxes.

But doesn't knocking a wide and deep chunk out of the noggin/dwang to accommmodate a metal back box structurally weaken the noggin/dwang?

S.

Man after my own heart. ;-)

But it won't weaken the wall if it was only put there as something to mount the backbox on.

Now that would depend on how thick the stud wall is.

Normally I would have the nogging set flush at the back of the stud wall and mount the back box directly onto it with no chopping out.

It depends on the construction of the wall and the insulation.

And presumably need access before the plasterboard goes on? And needs the plasterboard fitter to cut the hole for it?

Yes.

And of course Andy threw the spanner in the works by suggesting the use of tapered plasterboard and not using a skim coat.

I thought tapered boards were the most commonly used these days? Certainly I've used them for all my ceilings and partition walls, I don't trust myself to skim.

I also asked about these metal alternatives to noggins/dwangs, but Adam said he'd found them too weak ...

Are they meant to be fitted that way round? Also won't you need to pre-drill holes for self tapping screws.