How to install a double electrical box

Where can you get those cool junction box brackets that you demo'd. I can't see to find them online. Hello Mark, The "Box Hangers", made by Iberville in Canada, are available in all hardware stores in the electrical department.

Where can I find the bracket in this demonstration with the foldable tabs to do this. I went my local HD and Lowes and they do not stock. Excellent video.

Thanks for the explanation. My wife will be thrilled that I'm replacing the box that has started coming away from the wall. Actually if you dig into the Home Depot website -- about page 10 of 30 pages of "electrical boxes", you will find a variety of "no stud" boxes. They are calling them boxes with "old work clips" or "plaster ears" -- their way of saying "no stud". Rona is the same story -- dig through the web. Hi Jon, Thanks for the clear video. You do not need to cut slots for the screws to make the box fit into the wall opening.

If you look carefully the box ends are designed to pivot into the box. First remove the two non-metallic sheathed NM clamps; this allows the ends to pivot at the front edges into the box.

The box can be slipped into a slightly smaller opening than you needed to cut. The two ends, when fully pivoted, leave a small horizontal space between the ends at the middle of the box. Remove the appropriate knockout and bring the cable into the box.

Once the cable is in the box, you can use this opening to secure a wire in the cable, part of the cable sheath or electrical tape around the cable from inside the box to inside the room. This helps you not lose the cable, especially if they come from below, while pushing the box into the wall opening. Now careful pivot the ends and tighten the four screws that clamp the box to the drywall max. Pull the required cable length into the box and reinstall both NM clamps to secure the cable.

Hope that helps, Burt. I am trying to get some of those 2 piece tab brackets first one in the video and no one knows what I am talking about. Take a photo of the video and show it to the store clerk. A picture is worth a thousand words. To see all of this on video visit the Drywall section of the Learning Curve. When you need to install an electrical box in a specific location and there is no stud to attach it to, we call that ReWork -- getting a box in where it is impossible or difficult to attach to a stud.

Most electrical boxes are installed before the drywall during construction, so they are designed to be nailed or screwed straight across the box to the stud. When the drywall is already there, that simply doesn't work. You do have several choices. Buy an outlet cover for a duplex receptacle in a double box. Buy a wall plate for a centered toggle switch in a double box.

Adding a mud ring to the box will allow you to install a single device. A 2-gang center device cover plate can then be mounted to the device in the same way a standard cover would be. Note: you may need to trim down the cover plate's screws. Add a large mud ring for junction boxes , then simply mount the device to the ring and cover with a large oversized cover plate. Here is an example of a single switch with a gap between the wall surface and the electrical box.

For this reason I will eventually have to open the box back up and flip the plugs over. On the other hand it is not possible to plug in the hair dryer and the curling iron at the same time! This the ground pin direction is not necessarily upside down. Most homes that are built today are built with plugs ground up AND ground down. If ground is up that means one of the plugs is switched controlled by a wall switch. If the plug is ground down this means that the plug is live all the time not switched.

I am not sure when they started doing this. My old house was built in and used ground up switched format while my second home does not use the ground up format.

Both homes are in Phoenix. Thanks for helping me add a gang box in place of a single box so my ceiling fan will have a switch and my light will have its own switch. The electrician ran the correct wiring when my house was built but they only installed one switch. I did not know they made those. My comment on your plugs being upside down…I installed my plugs upside down when I wired my building. I made the wires too short to be able to turn them over without unwiring and wiring everything back again.

It worked fine so I dealt with it. However, years later where I had something plugged in that had a big square plug like a hairdryer has I started having problems with it getting loose and not staying plugged in.