Electrical box lesson

One of the great rewards of doing your own home-improvement projects is that you almost always learn something new. And that was certainly true when I installed wainscoting in our family room.

However, I was surprised that the lessons learned weren't about woodworking or carpentry, but electrical work.

You see, the first step of the project is to lay out all the wainscoting components to see how they align with the existing electrical outlets. Each outlet has to fall within one of the flat wall panels; they can't be on a vertical stile or raised bevel of a panel.

As it turned out, of course, 10 of the 12 outlets in the room had to be moved to fall on a panel. That meant cutting open the wall, pulling new cable, and repositioning the outlet boxes.

However, in nearly every case, the new locations of the outlet boxes didn't fall on a wall stud. So how was I suppose to attach the boxes?

I found the answer at my local electrical-supply firm.

The electrical-parts salesman showed me an old-work box designed specifically for my situation. It looks similar to any plastic outlet box, except that it has two adjustment screws that are fitted with plastic wings. Here's how it works:

You cut the outlet-box hole in the wall, pull the cable through the rear of the box, slip the box into the hole and push it tight against the wall.

Now when you turn the two adjustment screws, the small wings flip up inside the wall. As you continue to tighten the screws, the wings advance forward until they press tight against the rear of the wall, effectively locking the box in place.

Lesson learned. On to the next project!