Concrete floor boxes

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VirutalElectrician

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Mpls, MN
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Sparky - Trying to be retired
I don't have much experience with these as I don't do any new commercial stuff...But looking at a house that's going to have a 800sq open basement. The client doesn't have any vision for the space as of yet, but wants to do some future proofing...So looking at doing a grid of 6-8 in floor concrete boxes with 120 and data in them.

In researching products, I like the Leviton series, it has a nice divider down the middle to split low/high voltage, but it's $60 for a box, $25 for a leveling ring, and then $200! for the cover plate! So basically $300 per box plus PVC conduit and labor.

Bryant boxes are surprisingly more reasonably priced, but none of their boxes seem to have any low/high voltage divider.

The Arlington series is more reasonably priced. $30 for a box, $20 for a leveling plate, and under $100 for the cover plate. The problem with these boxes is that the low/high voltage divider cuts across a corner, only allowing a small corner for the low voltage, making it impossible to pass-through the low voltage to the next box, necessetating the need to run conduit to each box for data.

Hubbell System One...Similar to Leviton...Starts off nice and reasonable, then you get nailed $200 for a cover plate!

Legrand/Wiremold has a system similar to Leviton, but the floor plates are a bit cheaper at about $140 each.

Anything I'm missing?
 
Looks like you covered most manufacturer. You might check Carlon... I've used them but lost track of pricing
 
There is Cantex at big Orange, but doesn’t have the divider, or there’s Arlington. The plastic covers are much cheaper than the brass. Don’t know if I would bother with low voltage anyway, almost everything is wireless now including tv.

Wireless is a limited resource. Fixed items such as TVs, desktop computers, etc, should get a wire.
 
After some more digging last night, it looks like the best bang for the buck is the Arlingtin 5.5" boxes. Boxes are around $30 and the cover plates start at ~$100 for data and 120.

What I can't quite figure out is, can you mix and match cover plates and boxes from different manufacturers? Would kind of suck to rough in for one product line, only to come back 5 years later when they are ready to finish and that product line is gone and no cover plates exist for the boxes embedded in the concrete.
 
We specify theses quite a bit. They are the only plastic floor boxes that have a 2" opening which is great when you have a lot of data cabling.


ModulinkTM 880MP Series Rectangular Plastic Floor Box
 
Haven’t seen anybody using Ethernet or cable for TV’s in a long time. But if you can sell it, go for it!
That's a very short sighted way of doing things. Especially if you are in an urban area where you see lots of APs when you do a scan. All those devices are sharing the same air time. Get as much off the air as you can if you want reliable wireless. Devices that don't move should get a cable.
 
We specify theses quite a bit. They are the only plastic floor boxes that have a 2" opening which is great when you have a lot of data cabling.


ModulinkTM 880MP Series Rectangular Plastic Floor Box
Thank you very much! That's exactly what I need.

I like the joinable single gang boxes, then I don't have to be concerned about dividers!

I also found the ABB/TandB Steel City product line. They also have single gang boxes but they are $100 each gang!

How are you guys anchoring the boxes and the conduit to the foam board? There will be Pex lines for heat as well.

Do you usually put the electric in before or after the Pex lines?
 
Thank you very much! That's exactly what I need.

I like the joinable single gang boxes, then I don't have to be concerned about dividers!

I also found the ABB/TandB Steel City product line. They also have single gang boxes but they are $100 each gang!

How are you guys anchoring the boxes and the conduit to the foam board? There will be Pex lines for heat as well.

Do you usually put the electric in before or after the Pex lines?
I am not sure how the electricians install them in that kind of scenario. We just specify them on our drawings. Way back in the day when I did install floor boxes, we would put a brick/paver under each one to hold it in place until the floor was poured.
 
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