advice needed

G

g-and-h_electric

Senior Member
Location
northern illinois
Occupation
supervising electrician
Hey guys, need some advice..... I have a customer that bought a condo which they are planning on renting out.

The dining room ceiling outlet is not centered. The customer bought a fixture weighing about 37 pounds. She would like it "swagged" over from the existing box to center it over her envisionment of a table location. I personally dont trust the usual hook with a toggle bolt through the ceiling for this much weight. (I am going to guess the customer does not want either the box moved, or a home made to install blocking for the hook ).

The ceiling is drywall on "hat channel" and it is a multi story semi fire resistant place.

I just dont feel good about that much weigh hanging from 20 yr old drywall of unknown provenance .... Just want thoughts from you guys, as I know how to brace a hook (and make work for a painter / decorator)


Howard
 
You could install an old work fan box with a telescoping support bar and buy another canopy kit to hang the chain from. So one canopy on the existing box for wiring connection, and another canopy with a nipple to hang the chain off.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Hat channel to concrete with tie wire suspending it down from the deck. As to 2 hooks, are you thinking a piece of chain between them attached to the fixture chain thereby "splitting" the load?
 
37 lbs falling in the spaghetti bowl wouldn't be good. I am sure she will find someone to do it if you don't

Is the ceiling flat, textured etc can it be patched to look good?

The code may say its ok but I vote for commonsense.
 
Without being there it is hard to decide on one thing to do. If the telescoping fan box can engage the hat channel perfect, I am guessing the hat channel is like 1 1/2" metal, so it wouldn't. If the concrete isn't too far above the ceiling I could see getting a Sammy screwed in with a small hole in the sheetrock and 1/4" of 3/8" rod down. Less desirable, but supportive, a homemade toggle. I piece of metal bar long enough to span two pieces of hat channel and strong enough to support the weight either threaded or with an actual toggle through it sandwiching the hat channel/sheetrock between the metal bar and ceiling.
 
g-and-h_electric said:
Hat channel to concrete with tie wire suspending it down from the deck. As to 2 hooks, are you thinking a piece of chain between them attached to the fixture chain thereby "splitting" the load?
Click to expand...

oh sorry I missed the hat channel part, my idea on the old work fan box wouldn't work.

do you have enough room between the drywall and floor above to slide 1/2" EMT through and lay it across the channel?
 
I have used the "nail in" concrete anchors with a " F & M" plate" like the plumbers use to hang threaded rod. This can be done even if the deck is up some distance. You only have to drill 2 1/4" holes in the deck. Attache the TR to the F & M plate drill 2 holes as long as you can reach up that far or use a drill extension then use a steel rod to hammer the anchors in.

Not sure that the nail ins are rated for overhead use but two of them would hold a box up
 
Since you say you know how to do this, I will just mention what we did in our kitchen. We hired an electrical contractor to remove two lights that were hanging down over the island, and to install in their stead a lighted pot rack. It is quite heavy, and is centered between the original locations of the hanging lights. The original support boxes are simply hidden behind circular cover plates (that could be removed, at need).

My point is that there are two cover plates that seem, to the uninformed, to have no purpose. We don't care, as we don't often look at the ceiling area over the island, and consider the esthetics to be unimportant. Perhaps your customer might not be concerned over a similar appearance in their new dining room's ceiling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top