Kitchen Countertop Receptacles

Status
Not open for further replies.
georgestolz said:
Brick or drywall doesn't matter, IMO.

What does matter is the inspector's interpretation of 210.52(C).

jeff43222 said:
The inspectors generally consider the side wall as part of the wall that gets measured for receptacles, so the measurement starts at the front edge of the countertop.
Click to expand...
That's just nuts, IMO. I've never heard of that.

Look at it this way. An appliance in the kitchen has a two foot cord. If you install a receptacle on the back wall at just under 24", then you can set a toaster on the front corner of the counter and plug it in. It'll miss by, what, a few inches?

It's ludicrous to have to install a receptacle on a side wall to accomodate three square inches of counterspace in the corner that the back wall receptacle just barely can't reach.

That's not the way it's enforced in my neck of the woods, thank goodness. :D
Click to expand...

If an inspector wanted to use the side wall as part of the measurement it would be within there right to do so.I agree its ludicrous but I have been tagged for the same thing.

INSP. - 2 ft rule not met
ELEC. - I start my measurement from the back corner
INSP. - Do you measure around all inside corners.
ELEC. - Of course
INSP. - Well that is an inside corner that has more than 2 feet to the first
receptacle
ELEC. - Well I have never been told to use that part of the counter as
part of my lay out
INSP. - Well you have been told now.

It`s uncommom for an inspector to use that part of the wall adjacent to the counter top as part of spacing but any can if they wanted to and be totally correct.
210.52 C 1 - ( no point along the WALL line is more tham 600 mm (24 in.) measured horizontally from a receptacle in that space.)So in the wording if you don`t have a receptacle within that 25 in side wall then spacing has not been met.

I have been told countless times on this forum that just because you have done something doesn`t make it correct.
 
In this case, the chimney is about 2.5' x 2.5', so it's relatively small. But suppose the chimney were, say, 10' wide and located on one side of the kitchen, with just a few inches of actual "wall" on either side of it. Then suppose the homeowner wanted to install a 10' countertop using the chimney as a backsplash. Would that mean that no receptacles would need to be installed on the chimney, since it's not a wall? Would this 10' countertop be considered a peninsula (a very wide, short one) and only require one receptacle?

Around these parts, chimneys often run through kitchens, but they are generally covered with drywall. While I agree that a chimney and a wall don't have the same intended purpose, I still think that in cases like this the chimney serves a dual purpose: venting exhaust and serving as a wall.
 
The penninsulla would only require one receptacl but if there is more than 12 inches of chimney/wall since it actually a wall in the scense that it forms a backing to the actal end of thecounter top then IMHO and as written it is a back splash to the counter top and counted as wall space.Sometimes customers just have to deal with the requirements of what the nec says must be there.Have you thought about using a diamond bladed angle grinder and carefully cuttin out a couple of bricks so you can install a horizontal lc box in that area and chasing the bricks below to get below the counter top sleeving in a flexible conduit that is rated to be imbedded in masorny,them running flex or ltfmc through the cabinet and feed the next receptacle on the standard wall.If they just don`t want the receptacle stand out paint the face plate to match the brick.Or mount the countertop on wheels and as such it is not an affixed counter top and the spacing would start from the front of the chimeny and none required for 6 feet from the start,same as standard wall spacing,you could still use the back wall and at that point could still use the standard countertop height since below the max height of a required receptacle.Now it there was a 25 inch brick wall at the end of a penninsula
and open on 3 sides and then maybe one as close to both sides below the counter top,providing you can maintain the 6 in 11 in rule that would put the chinmney with in 24 inches of the centerline of a 24 in length measured from the center of the brick and then required receptacles could be 4 ft.But if its a fixed counter top then by the letter of the NEC you are sc#@!%d the wall requires a receptacle with in the 14 ins of the start of the counter top as per the NEC.
Me I would opt for removing a couple of bricks and sleeving and feed ing to adjacet recpetacle on a standard wall receptacleIn the posted pic under the uppers as long as within 20 ins from the counter top that would also work,since as long as within the required 20 ins they count for serving the counter top and all answers are redundent since spacing would bemet ,Eitherway this is an extra as long as the plans that were bid were for standard wall
I did a home 2 years that the entire back walls were glass bocks and we also mounted all receptacles under the uppers.As far as a stove/cook top/range the measurment isn`t in the equation since they don`t follow the wall line.
 
allenwayne said:
jeff43222 said:
allenwayne said:
I did a home 2 years that the entire back walls were glass bocks...
Click to expand...

Those weren't walls -- they were windows! No need for any receptacles at all! :D
Click to expand...

If they moved I would agree but if fixed then they count as a wall :wink:
Click to expand...
I agree with Allen, again! (Scary, ain't it?)

Stationary windows are considered to be wall space. If you cannot install a required receptacle in a wall, a floor-mounted receptacle within 18" of the wall qualifies.
 
LarryFine said:
allenwayne said:
jeff43222 said:
allenwayne said:
I did a home 2 years that the entire back walls were glass bocks...
Click to expand...

Those weren't walls -- they were windows! No need for any receptacles at all! :D
Click to expand...

If they moved I would agree but if fixed then they count as a wall :wink:
Click to expand...
I agree with Allen, again! (Scary, ain't it?)

Stationary windows are considered to be wall space. If you cannot install a required receptacle in a wall, a floor-mounted receptacle within 18" of the wall qualifies.
Click to expand...

Actually, I was being facetious. My take is that if you put a kitchen countertop up against something that acts like a wall, then it is a wall for the purpose of counting required receptacles.

As for stationary windows, how are they defined? I have two piano windows in my living room that were designed to never be opened. Surely they aren't considered wall space.
 
jeff43222 said:
I have two piano windows in my living room that were designed to never be opened. Surely they aren't considered wall space.
Click to expand...
Without seeing them, I'd have to say that they are, and don't call me Shirley. :wink:
 
Jim W in Tampa said:
The code says FIREPLACE it does not say chimney.
Click to expand...
The code says, ". . . fireplaces, and similar openings." I say that a chimney is "similar" to a fireplace, in that either (1) It is the other side of the fireplace, or (2) The fireplace is on a lower floor. More to the point, a chimney is similar to a fireplace in that it breaks the floor line of the wall into two sections: There is a wall section to the left and another to the right, and what is in the middle is not a wall. Now, I invite you to use an NEC citation to prove that I'm wrong.


Jim W in Tampa said:
Its a wall and you could hang a picture
Click to expand...
I can hang a picture on a door or on the fridge, but that does not make either one of them a wall.
 
charlie b said:
The code says, ". . . fireplaces, and similar openings."
Click to expand...

Ah.

I think I see where you have been getting your take.

Here's my take on "similar openings".

A place that the fire is built in is an opening.

The material that is on the edges of the opening is NOT opening, but something else. . .

A chimney, the chimney that Jeff is describing in this thread, has no openings in it, and is in no way similar to the hole in which a wood fire is built.
 
It is not the chimney (or the fireplace or the door) that has within itself an opening. It is the wall that has an opening, and you build the chimney (or the fireplace or the door) into the opening in the wall.

This is like the statement some have made to the effect that the safety belt you put on when you get into a car should not be called a "seat belt." They prefer to call it a "lap belt." Those who support this view are saying that the belt lies against your lap, and not against your "seat." But I submit that the word "seat" in the phrase "seat belt" is referring to the seat of the car, not the seat of the occupant.
 
charlie b said:
I can hang a picture on a door or on the fridge, but that does not make either one of them a wall.
Click to expand...
You may be able to hang a picture ON an operable door, but if the DOOR OPENING is to be useful, you can't hang a picture IN the opening. (Well, it could be small, or sideways, or. . .but you get my point.)

You can't hang a common picture IN a working fireplace opening and still have a picture.

The chimney that Jeff is describing, is in no way, an opening that suffers loss of function by having a picture hung on it.

Vehicle passenger restraints don't apply to openings. :twisted:
 
Are you going to submit a change for the 2011 NEC to define a wall as something capable of having pictures hung upon it? :wink:

But let's keep to the point. Here's how I see it: A chimney is an opening in the wall space, and therefore need not have a receptacle and need not be included in the placement of receptacles no more than 12 feet apart. But a 2 foot wall to the side of a chimney needs its own receptacle.

Furthermore, if you have a 2 foot wall on either side of a (let us say a 3 foot wide) chimney, and if you place a receptacle in the middle of the left hand wall, you can't say that the far right point on the right hand wall space is within 6 feet of the receptacle on the left hand wall, and thereby conclude that the right hand wall does not need its own receptacle.
 
How about this?
I have a fireplace in my kitchen with the hearth facing into another room.
I build a counter each side of the fireplace and against the fireplace so that the counter is full depth as it wraps around the fireplace.

To me there is no break in the counter space.

Normal counter depth is 24 inches deep give or take. It is not specified in the NEC though.

So if the counter is only 12 inches deep in front of the fireplace nothing changes. It is still wall space.

I would be willing to look at a situation from a practrical stand point. If the counter is only 6 inches deep, then I would not require a recep because it is too shallow to put an appliance there.

Another one:
The back of the fireplace is flush with surface of the wall on each side of it. I see no break in the wall space in this case. The wall merely changes construction material.
 
charlie b said:
When 210.52(A)(2)(1) uses the phrase "or similar openings," I do not look for holes in the wall. I don't look for a hole I can walk through (i.e., a doorway) or a hole through which I can pass another log for the fire. I look for something that isn't a wall, something you could remove and leave the wall in place, something that would look like a hole during the rough-in stage of construction, if the wall was build first, and the other thing (like the chimney) was built into the hole in the wall.
Click to expand...
Walls can, and are on occassion, built of dissimilar materials. Rarely, if ever, during roughin, are the dissimilar materials assembled concurrently and as a unit. While a wall of one material is "roughed in" there will be a "hole" where the other wall of different material is to be. . .

I can demolish the wall that was built second.

Therefore, by your quoted logic above, the second wall is not a wall but, rather, a "similar openning".
 
Al, it's not a question of similarity in materials. It is a matter of dissimilarity of function. The function of a wall is to hang pictures. The function of a chimney is to carry away combustion gases.
 
Charlie,

It depends on whether you are inside or outside of the brick chimney that Jeff has described.

Regardless, the activity, or lack thereof, behind the solid, unbroken brick exterior of the chimney is not apparent to the observer standing at the kitchen counter.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top