What am I looking for?

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Strahan

Senior Member
Location
Watsontown, PA
Hi everyone, ran into a situation where customer is removing drop ceiling and replacing with drywall. There is a 4x4 junction box above the drop ceiling. Customer wants ceiling fan once room is complete. I have no way of eliminating j-box without ripping the adjacent rooms apart to pull wire. Customer not happy about that so I'm looking for a 4" square fixture cover (square to round) that is rated for ceiling fan. I can find the "mud rings" but nothing that is rated for ceiling fan. I could replace existing square box with octagon but because of spacing in box and the amount of wires spacing may be an issue. Thanks
 

kenman215

Senior Member
Location
albany, ny
Can you use a round mud ring and provide independent support for the fan?

I think you might be in a little bit of a jam. As far as I know paddle fan boxes with machine screw are suppose to be 10-24s. I don't believe that 2 8-32s are considered proper paddle fan support. I do know that they make a metal pancake style paddle fan box that comes with 10-24 screws. Hypothetically, if the 4 square is securely mounted, I think that you could get a 4sq to round flat mud ring, send bolts down from the back of the 4 square through the factory holes, nutted on the underside, passing through the ring, into the pancake box, nutted again on the other side. Knock out the center k.o. in the pancake and put in a pass through snap bushing. J-box would still be accessible by removing the pancake, this compliant. I think.
 

Strahan

Senior Member
Location
Watsontown, PA
I think you might be in a little bit of a jam. As far as I know paddle fan boxes with machine screw are suppose to be 10-24s. I don't believe that 2 8-32s are considered proper paddle fan support. I do know that they make a metal pancake style paddle fan box that comes with 10-24 screws. Hypothetically, if the 4 square is securely mounted, I think that you could get a 4sq to round flat mud ring, send bolts down from the back of the 4 square through the factory holes, nutted on the underside, passing through the ring, into the pancake box, nutted again on the other side. Knock out the center k.o. in the pancake and put in a pass through snap bushing. J-box would still be accessible by removing the pancake, this compliant. I think.

Ceiling fan mount would then fasten to the pancake?
 

Strahan

Senior Member
Location
Watsontown, PA
Here you go:
access panel

Leave the jbox, put a standard paddle fan bracket where you want to.

Suggested that idea. Customer didn't like it, plus j-box is dead center of room right where fan will go. Customer also let me know that last electrician that did work in the upstairs just covered j-box. Sorry for you but that's not happening. Makes me upset that these people are out there.
 

JFletcher

Senior Member
Location
Williamsburg, VA
Suggested that idea. Customer didn't like it, plus j-box is dead center of room right where fan will go. Customer also let me know that last electrician that did work in the upstairs just covered j-box. Sorry for you but that's not happening. Makes me upset that these people are out there.


Well, the customer has 3 choices then:

1) Deal with access panel, assuming you can move either the fan or j-box enough so that they arent right on top one another
2) Pay you to properly eliminate j-box, or move it, which would create 2 access panels
3) Hire someone else to cover the jbox

or, maybe... how far above the drop ceiling is this j-box? Would the conductors inside be accessible with even a 2" mudring? Could you put a piece of 2x8 lumber between joists, have the mudring come flush with the drywall (with the ring inside of the 2x8), and secure the fan bracket to the framing (your newly installed 2x8) rather than the box?

eta: unless the wiring to the box is banjo-stringed, you could drop the box down from the framing by putting lumber behind it and use a shorter ring (if need be).
 
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kenman215

Senior Member
Location
albany, ny
Well, the customer has 3 choices then:

1) Deal with access panel, assuming you can move either the fan or j-box enough so that they arent right on top one another
2) Pay you to properly eliminate j-box, or move it, which would create 2 access panels
3) Hire someone else to cover the jbox

or, maybe... how far above the drop ceiling is this j-box? Would the conductors inside be accessible with even a 2" mudring? Could you put a piece of 2x8 lumber between joists, have the mudring come flush with the drywall (with the ring inside of the 2x8), and secure the fan bracket to the framing rather than the box?

Don't like my fix idea? Should be code compliant right?
 

infinity

Moderator
Staff member
Location
New Jersey
Occupation
Journeyman Electrician
Maybe you can leave the box with a single gang mud ring and mount the new fan box right next to it then cover the mud ring with a blank cover and a large medallion at the new fan location. The medallion will hide the ugly blank cover. Might be iffy code wise. :roll:
 

Strahan

Senior Member
Location
Watsontown, PA
Well, the customer has 3 choices then:

1) Deal with access panel, assuming you can move either the fan or j-box enough so that they arent right on top one another
2) Pay you to properly eliminate j-box, or move it, which would create 2 access panels
3) Hire someone else to cover the jbox

or, maybe... how far above the drop ceiling is this j-box? Would the conductors inside be accessible with even a 2" mudring? Could you put a piece of 2x8 lumber between joists, have the mudring come flush with the drywall (with the ring inside of the 2x8), and secure the fan bracket to the framing rather than the box?

eta: unless the wiring to the box is banjo-stringed, you could drop the box down from the framing by putting lumber behind it and use a shorter ring (if need be).

Wiring is not banjo tight and since the j-box is dead center of room I will go with previous idea of mud ring and pancake this shouldn't be an issue. New ceiling will not be far below the existing j-box just far enough to allow for existing wire runs.
 

kenman215

Senior Member
Location
albany, ny
Back in the day wen I did high end residential, we'd often do paddle fans in the center of a room with 4 or 6 recessed cans, depending on the shape of the room, in a perimeter pattern around it. Talk them into that and you could use the recessed junction boxes to feed in and out of to complete the old junctions. No funky boxes and a couple extra bucks for you...
 

mopowr steve

Senior Member
Location
NW Ohio
Occupation
Electrical contractor
My take on it, you could use a 2 1/8 deep octagon box (if that gives you enough room for wires) using the innermost holes for mounting the box to a 2x4 therefore leaving the outermost holes for you to use long lag bolts thru fan bracket up thru box into 2x4. Would satisfy mounting restrictions. Just watch those wires and bolts.

Heck, you could use a old work style fan bracket between joists and it would allow you to mount a 4sq box (if you need the room) to it with a p-ring as most old work style fan brackets have an auxiliary mounting bracket that attaches to bracket independent of box.
 
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