Old work cut in tile for gfci

J

jeffreylee7469

Member
Location
washington county, PA
Occupation
electrician
Can anyone offer advice on cutting ai an old work box in tile?
What’s best for cutting the tile for the old work box?
What’s the best orientation to seat the box, vertical or horizontal? The other receptacles were installed horizontal. It’s countertop for a microwave?
 
jeffreylee7469 said:
Can anyone offer advice on cutting ai an old work box in tile?
What’s best for cutting the tile for the old work box?
What’s the best orientation to seat the box, vertical or horizontal? The other receptacles were installed horizontal. It’s countertop for a microwave?
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Typically you would use a wet saw. Using a diamond hole saw with a stream of water is how you drill a slab for a faucet, etc. so that'd probably be your best bet for what I assume is a backsplash. I guess you could theoretically use a diamond blade on an oscillating tool but all the ones I've seen market them for grout removal so I'm not sure how well it would work on the tile itself.

What kind of tile? Ceramic is pretty soft, porcelain is much harder.

We've always involved a tile setter and they typically break out a tile or two, then cut some new tiles on a wet saw and reinstall them.

Rob G
Seattle
 
I'd definitely cut along the grout lines on two sides (1 vertical, 1 horizontal) as that's much easier to cut than the tile itself. However, if you have to line the box up with other devices, etc., that may not work out.
I've used a rotary tool with a diamond blade with pretty good success. Use a spray bottle to keep the cut/blade wet while you cut.
 
Also Dremel makes a tile cutting bit. I have used it to cut thin bath wall tile and it is fairly slow but did a good job. I also used it to cut thick floor tile although it is not recommended for this I just took my time and it did ok. If you only have 1 or two outlets that may be a possibility
 
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