Inspection questions

T

Therealcrt

Senior Member
Location
Kansas City
Occupation
Electrician
for the lighting we are going with all 6in recessed lights with the little white adaptor cord that comes with a separate junction box with the other part of the white cord that hangs off of it. I ran all the romex in the ceiling and placed them where the lights are going to be and we are cutting them in after dry wall. These fixtures are made for a remodel style so the junction box typically rests right on top of the drywall next to the 6in hole.. the inspector says these little small junction boxes need to be mounted or secured to the truss or secreted somehow but said if this was a remodel job and the drywall was existing then it would be fine for us not to secure them that makes no sense to me.. this is not a brand new construction but sort of a demo it all and build back new in the interior so the owner chose these fixtures and they did not come with the flat pan that usually mounts up between the joists and these junction boxes then rests on that part. So why is this inspector making us secure these little j boxes? Is there code somewhere that says this
 
Technically all boxes are required to be securely mounted. These types of lights have created a new wrinkle when it comes to retrofitting in an existing ceiling. Most inspectors allow the box to just lay on the ceiling but nowhere does it say that doing so is code compliant.

I can see the inspector's point. It sounds like the ceiling was closed in after you ran the cables so you could have mounted the boxes ahead of time. Halo makes great mounts for their wafer lights that the box attaches to similar to old school high hats. Something like that is what probably should have been used.

With a long extension bit on an impact driver you can usually get at least one screw in the box to mount it to the joist especially with 6" cans there isn't a problem.
 
The ceiling joists are still exposed. Therefore, I could go through and wire all of the boxes and just simply mount them to the joists. The problem is I don’t know if the cord will be long enough if the can in the dead center of the joist when I go to cut them in those little cords aren’t very long
 
Therealcrt said:
The ceiling joists are still exposed. Therefore, I could go through and wire all of the boxes and just simply mount them to the joists. The problem is I don’t know if the cord will be long enough if the can in the dead center of the joist when I go to cut them in those little cords aren’t very long
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Well I agree with the inspector that these must be mounted. Not sure about the brand you're using but the Halo ones have about a 12-15" cord which is a decent amount of flexibility. Someone will have to decide ahead of time what the approximate layout is if the boxes are mounted to the joists.
 
I always mount mine. I do the layout on the floor beforehand, so I know where they go.

All the wafer brands I’ve used, the box can be mounted within a few inches of the hole, on the joist or truss chord, and there is plenty of wire to fit them in.
 
On one job, I did the layout on roughin, but was worried that marks on floor would be scuffed off at finish, so put a panhead screw in floor at center of each, wired and mounted drivers, and told builder to have sheetrockers cover ceilings without holes.

As soon as sheetrock was hung, went through with laser plumb bob and hole saw, very good results.
 
Therealcrt said:
for the lighting we are going with all 6in recessed lights with the little white adaptor cord that comes with a separate junction box with the other part of the white cord that hangs off of it. I ran all the romex in the ceiling and placed them where the lights are going to be and we are cutting them in after dry wall. These fixtures are made for a remodel style so the junction box typically rests right on top of the drywall next to the 6in hole.. the inspector says these little small junction boxes need to be mounted or secured to the truss or secreted somehow but said if this was a remodel job and the drywall was existing then it would be fine for us not to secure them that makes no sense to me.. this is not a brand new construction but sort of a demo it all and build back new in the interior so the owner chose these fixtures and they did not come with the flat pan that usually mounts up between the joists and these junction boxes then rests on that part. So why is this inspector making us secure these little j boxes? Is there code somewhere that says this
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It would seem the box should not only be secured but also accessible?
 
Little Bill said:
I've put in hundreds of these and have never mounted the JB.
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Never had an inspector complain. Good point was made is that a JB has to be accessible, and how do you do that on the 4in lights if the box is not directly at the hole. The HALO mount plate will not create an accessible reach of the JB.
But is the box for these light a JB or are they the lighting driver, I believe they are a driver, and do the lighting driver need to be accessible? If these are a JB then they have no where near the CUI required even for one #14 cable let alone a pass through.
 
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