Residential basement remodel problem:
Replacing old, ungrounded wiring. Problem is cinder block walls. Inside, the exterior walls have rigid insulation and one layer of 1 x 3 furring strips covered by drywall. Interior walls have simply drywall directly on cider block.
Aesthetically, I want to 'hide' all wires. There is no room for wires in the walls. We don't want surface raceway or conduit.
Can either armored or plain wires be run behind baseboards?
What if the baseboard is backed by 1/16" metal plating?
Also can armored cable be routed thru ceiling joists?
Or any other ideas and solutions welcome.
What will meet NEC? Thanks!
Electrical – run #14 armored cable behind baseboards
baseboardbasement-refinishingelectricalnecwiring
Related Solutions
Clamp meters need to be clamped around a single conductor, they will not work if clamped around the entire cable. You would need to clamp around a place where a single conductor is exposed without the metal armor, usually in the main breaker panel or at a receptacle, switch or junction box.
You don't. Either stop the baseboard at the corner and live with the gap, or frame the opening with baseboard or molding and overhang the edge.
Notice how in this picture you can't see the metal track at the top, and you also can't see the gap between the outer left/right edges of the doors and the wall. That's because the molding overhangs the wall by 1/4 to 1/2 inch.
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Best Answer
NEC 300.4(D) covers the type of installation indicated in the question, and it applies to both AC and MC armored cable. So you'll need to use a steel guard at least 1/16" thick to protect the cable.
This tip from Fine Homebuilding illustrates this type of installation. Rather than backing the molding with steel plating, they use a U-shaped channel to protect the cable, which should be much easier:
The illustration shows a nonmetallic cable and a plaster finished wall. You will need more depth than the thickness of the drywall to fit armored cable and steel U-channel. On your outside walls with the furring strip, you can just cut out the foam board with a knife and the furring strips with an oscillating tool to get the additional depth. On the interior walls, with the drywall directly on the block, I think you'll have to route a channel on the back of the base molding to make room. In fact it might be better to use that method on the outside walls, too.
You have another challenge here: getting the cable from the baseboard channel to the existing boxes. This might not be too difficult if you can fish the void in the blocks, but it could be a big can of worms.