Installing flush mounted LED "faux recessed" lighting fixtures on a 7 cu/in pancake box.

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Shawn McCarter

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Milton, FL
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Electrician
I'm going to assume that it is a violation since the volume fill would have to include the 2 14 AWG conductors, the grounding conductor, as well as the 2 conductors from the lighting fixture.

I've been installing these lights this way for some time and have only recently had anything mentioned to me about it. The comment came from an inspector who stated that a 3" pancake box would be in violation, but a 4" box would not.

What alternatives are there? Comments please.
 
Can you pull the branch circuit conductors into the fixture and splice them there? There may be other issues if you're mounting these over the box.
 
Not sure what you mean. During the rough-in, I'll place a box on top of particle board - say, on the ceiling of a front porch - I would have drilled a hole in the particle board, ran 14/2 through the hole (stubbed), then ran the romex into the pancake box and would have fixed the pancake box to the particle board. After that, the contractor would have placed the finish veneer over the pancake box - cutting relief around the box. I'd come back to do the finish work to install the lighting fixture. In my scenario, the fixture is a flush mounted LED "puck - faux recessed" fixture. The question is about box fill.
 
You said that the box is too small once you enter the fixture wires in the box, can you just pull the wires from the box into the fixture and make the splices there? What is a puck - faux recessed fixture? Does this get mounted directly to the box or is it fastened directly to the ceiling?
 
Hmm... Not sure how to explain it further. A ceiling - flat surface - of a house. Let's say that it's the front porch. The plans call for a light to be installed on the ceiling of the front porch. When I get to the rough in, the particle board/plywood has been installed. I measure the center point of the light fixture as outlined on the set of plans that I have. I drill a 1 inch hole through the plywood ceiling. I then go above the plywood ceiling and into the attic portion of the building and run romex through the 1" hole that I've drilled into the plywood. I then go back down to the front porch with a pancake box and run the romex through the pancake box and place the pancake box onto the plywood ceiling and fix it to the ceiling with screws.

I leave for a month or so while the contractor does his/her/their finish work on the building.

When I come back, the veneer will have been applied to the ceiling. I'm left with a pancake box that is now recessed into the veneer and the fixture that the owner or contractor wants me to install is a flush mount lighting fixture. It has a flat base - no bell housing ... it's flat.
 
As for the fixture. It's a 6" round disk. Flat on the bottom. It's used extensively here in the panhandle of Florida. It represents an alternative to the traditional recessed can lighting fixture. I'm not sure how to describe it better.
 
Do you use shallow pancake boxes for lighting fixtures? Maybe that's the question that I should have led with.

Does anyone besides me and every electrician in the panhandle of Florida use shallow pancake boxes to mount lighting fixtures to?
 
Shawn McCarter said:
Not sure what you mean. During the rough-in, I'll place a box on top of particle board - say, on the ceiling of a front porch - I would have drilled a hole in the particle board, ran 14/2 through the hole (stubbed), then ran the romex into the pancake box and would have fixed the pancake box to the particle board. After that, the contractor would have placed the finish veneer over the pancake box - cutting relief around the box. I'd come back to do the finish work to install the lighting fixture. In my scenario, the fixture is a flush mounted LED "puck - faux recessed" fixture. The question is about box fill.
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314.16 b1 exception
 
A 3/0 pancake box is 4 cubic inches. A single 14/2 nm cable needs a minimum of 6 cubic inches. If the box has an internal clamp it needs to be a minimum 8 cubic inches.
 
The pancake pox was only used when the fixture had the additional cubic space for wireing and became part of the total cubic inch requirement for running and splicing wire. Now if you know you are putting on the flat bottom flush fixtures you need to accommodate the cubic inch fill requirements totally within the box as the fixture has no additional Cu In.
410.20 allows the light canopy to supplement the cu in of the box, now if there is no canopy to speak of or is flat you need to meet the fill requirements totally with in the box. Thus inspector correct that the pancake box in this application of a flat bottom fixture would create a box fill failure of 314.16.
 
Shawn McCarter said:
Do you use shallow pancake boxes for lighting fixtures? Maybe that's the question that I should have led with.

Does anyone besides me and every electrician in the panhandle of Florida use shallow pancake boxes to mount lighting fixtures to?
Click to expand...
No, nobody does because it's too small. I'd use 4" octagon with mounting ears or Allied Molded 3-5/8" old work
 
Thanks everyone. I've used the shallow pancake boxes in this situation since I began working as an electrician. Not until I was questioned about the 3" box did I ever think about it. Now I'm studying box fill and that really made me question it. Believe it or not, I've also used shallow outlet boxes on island installations. It's simply how the companies that I've worked for have always done things. And the inspectors pass them every time without question. I haven't had a job fail an inspection in a very long time so you understand why I was hung up on the pancake box issue. I just figured everyone was using them.
 
In the previous post, it looks like the light is 2 inches thick, but It's only 1/2 inch.

No way to wire inside the fixture.

Pancakes are virtually impossible to use comfortably because the back is flat.

I've done it once or twice when I really have no other option, but I would never make that a regular install.
 
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