Have looked thru the code and cant find the answer to this. Many halls, rooms etc. are listed as having firewalls. Is there an area in the code that states you can not use a lo-voltage cut in in a fire rated wall? All walls have drywall so are somewhat listed fire rated and a 4" sq. box mounted in the same wall had the factory drilled 1/4 " holes in it so ..........I just cant find a section stating you cant put these rings in a certain type of wall, especially fire rated.
Low voltage cut in rings
- Thread starter rpugh
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- Massachusetts
Building codes and the UL 'orange book'.
First off, welcome to the Forums, you'll find a lot of useful info and great folks here. :smile:
I don't mean to be rude or insulting here, but a moment of thought will make it obvious why an LV cut-in ring wouldn't fly in a fire rated wall.
With a proper box in the wall, the only holes that should be present are the tiny ones in the box itself (and even that will be taken care of by the fire putty seal that a lot of areas require) where as the LV ring will leave a 2x4 inch open hole in the wall which fire can easily penetrate to the cavity of the wall.
A simple experiment you can do (outdoors) is to mount an ordinary 4 square box to a wood stud, all knockouts either intact or with a stub of properly clamped wire installed, install a single gang mudring, stuff the box with paper and light it on fire, and observe how little flame will actually escape from those small remaining holes.
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