Wall cut-outs

[roger wiegand]

You didn't say what kind of shop you're talking about - stand-alone, garage, basement... I believe code in most places doesn't allow plywood or similar on walls shared with the main living space of the house. For fire safety reasons, this needs to be drywall - and 5/8 drywall if its a wall shared with a garage. Maybe it's not this way in CO, but I think this is pretty universal.

I'm pretty sure that fire-rated plywood would meet the code requirement.

[Tom M King]

I found a picture of the type of installation I was talking about in sheetrock.

[Roger Feeley]

This doesn’t answer your question, but when I built my shop the electrician suggested surface mounted boxes and conduit.

I’m really glad I did that makes adding, adapting circuits a snap.

Plus (to your question) no box cutting out!

+1 on surface mounting. As Robert said, adding and moving stuff is easy.

With just a few exceptions, all my machines are wired up to the ceiling. I'm tall enough that it's easy for me to reach ceiling mounted outlets. If I were shorter, I would just wire up hanging boxes. I don't use extension cords much. If I find that I am running a cord someplace, it just means that I need another outlet.

For those that are wired to the wall, I use numerous clips to hold down the romex. I used to run conduit but my shop is just me and I know enough to treat the romex gently.

One more hint. Mark the breaker number on all the outlets. I write stuff on the breaker box but sometimes there are too many items to do it neatly.

[David Gutierrez]

no such thing as "FIRE RATED" plywood. there is a fire retardant treated plywood.

[Jon Snider]

Any feedback on how a RotoZip works and feels on 10mm SmartSide? Seems like it might be better than regular plywood and less likely to cut into plastic boxes.

Thx again

Jon

[Jim Andrew]

I found a rotozip very difficult to use on drywall, and prefer to use a saber saw. Can't comment on smart side.

[James Biddle]

we ran wire mold around the shop...mix and match various plugs and switches wherever you want.

[Jerome Stanek]

When I was installing CVS stores I had to cut outlets in 3/4 paneling and I used a roto zip just have to use the right bit.

[Orlando Gonzalez]

I have the wiring running through the studs and stud mounted boxes. If I had to do it again, I would go with surface mounted boxes. I used a jig saw to do the cut outs. I drew the outline on the wall panel before attaching it to the studs. If you are doing stud mounted boxes make sure that it protrudes far enough to account for the thickness of the wall panel. I had to move too many boxes to accomplish this. It became so frustrating that I left two on the ceiling as they are. The reason I did it was because the cutouts were to be covered by wall plates for aesthetics only.

[Julie Moriarty]

On the rare occasion walls are sheathed in something other than drywall on the jobsite, I've seen both measure and pre-cut and a router used. Carpenters do the measure and pre-cut, drywallers use a router.

[Roger Feeley]

I have the wiring running through the studs and stud mounted boxes. If I had to do it again, I would go with surface mounted boxes. I used a jig saw to do the cut outs. I drew the outline on the wall panel before attaching it to the studs. If you are doing stud mounted boxes make sure that it protrudes far enough to account for the thickness of the wall panel. I had to move too many boxes to accomplish this. It became so frustrating that I left two on the ceiling as they are. The reason I did it was because the cutouts were to be covered by wall plates for aesthetics only.

orlando, your comment about wall plate aesthetics reminded me of something else I did. In my basement shop, all outlets with plastic plates were put in by the electrician and are powered from the main panel. All outlets I put in have galvanized plates. I’ve found that very convenient compared to my old shop where I just used whatever was at hand.

another thing I did was to avoid those $.99 outlets where you insert the wire in the back. When I deconstructed the old shop, a bunch of those thins had come loose and were probably arcing. It’s a wonder that I didn’t have a fire. The new outlets are backwired with clamps.

[Orlando Gonzalez]

Roger, all electrical work was done by an electrician who put the galvanized plates on the boxes. After I put up the plywood walls with the cutouts, it looked pretty bad so I decided to cover up the cutouts with white wall plates to match the wall color. That's the aesthetics part. It was then that I realized that the boxes were too far in. I got mud rings to replace the galvanized plates then attached the wall plate to it and then the fun began moving the boxes out so that the plate would be flush with the wall. Huge PITA and why surface mounted would have been my best option.

[Jerome Stanek]

When I was installing I would measure and cut before I put the paneling up the outlets were already there and wired up.

[Scott T Smith]

There are a few things that I did when I built my shop that have worked out well.

First, I ran several 3" conduits under the slab from my load centers to each wall. The conduit stubs up inside the wall into a box, and then there is a horizontal run of 1-1/2" conduit runs through the wall with numerous electrical boxes set along the conduit inside the wall. This allows me to easily pull wire to almost any location in the shop walls in the future to accommodate any changing equipment configurations.

Second, I have four load centers in my shop. A single phase 240 load center primarily filled with 120V breakers, a single phase 240 load center primarily filled with 240 breakers, a 240 three phase load center and a 480 three phase load center. All are connected with 6" rectangular conduit running below them, and most of the conduits in the shop terminate into the rectangular conduit. It's a flexible configuration that makes it easy to upgrade equipment and pull new wire.

Third, the bottom 4' of my shop has 5/8" drywall all the way around, and OSB above it. This places fire resistant drywall adjacent to all of the electrical components, as well as down low on the walls near where any fire might start, yet allow for the versatility of the wooden walls above for mounting shelves, hanging tools, etc.

[Jon Snider]

Scott and others,

This is all excellent information. Thanks so much for the help. In earlier posts I incompletely described my new shop. It is 40 x 28’ over a structural floor (beefed up to industrial standards) over a full basement. This leaves me lots of flexibility for future wiring changes and also allows me to place the 3 Phase generator, plus dust collector and air compressor down below. After reading this thread, I can now add additional receptacles, of any voltage or phase, via in wall-to-basement conduit to numerous extra empty metal in-wall JB’s mounted in multiple spots around all four walls. If in the future those don’t cut it, surface mounts via basement are an easy solution.

I wanted to to follow up after partially putting up 7/16” SmartSide. Using a RotoZip didn’t work out well for us. Couldn’t easily feel the SS OSB vs the plastic box.

Peter, the Blind Mark was a great call. So far seems to work great, as long as you remember to place the magnet arrow up. There’s a nice 2” repair in the one where I forgot. Thanks much for the tip!

I may try the lipstick on the rim of each receptacle box trick for the panel with 7 cutouts just to see how it works.

Once again, this is a great site. Good people. Great knowledge.

Picture of southwest corner. This area is 10’ tall with a loft overhead. Don’t have any pics yet of east and west walls with most of cutouts:
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North wall with a 16’ rake, will be a challenge. Saving it for last.

Jon