How am I supposed to open the holes for the cables in a junction box like the one shown in the picture below?
How to open holes in plastic electrical junction box
junction
Related Solutions
At first glance, I see several problems:
- The junction should be in a junction box.
- Is there even an electrical nut on the live wires? Hard to tell under all that electrical tape, but it doesn't look as if there's room for one.
- Is the neutral from the red wire at top going into that tangle of lives? If it's carrying live, it should be tagged to indicate that.
- The red wire to the right shouldn't be running along the top of the ceiling joist. If you can, run it along the middle of one of the sides.
- Ideally, the yellow wire at bottom would pass through a hole drilled through the joist. Failing that, there should be furring strips either side to prevent you from stepping on it.
- The electrical tape on the neutral and ground wires isn't strictly necessary for code, but if it's there, it's customary to have it go around the nut to help hold it in place.
- Thanks to @tester101: different sheath colors indicates different gauge wires. Check that your circuit breaker has the appropriate amperage rating.
- Staples: if you run wires across the joists, they should be stapled to keep them in place between the furring strips (that you also need; see #5). You'll also need them along the length of the wires that run along the joists, and it might be a good idea to have one near where the wire drops down through the 2x4 header (given the quality of the rest of the job, whoever did this may not have used staples when running the wire through the wall cavity).
- It looks as if you might have a lot of slack in those wires. Wiring shouldn't be piano-wire taut, but you don't want enough slack that you can trip over it.
Just because the inspector didn't mention it, doesn't mean it's OK. They're human, so they can miss things, especially in an attic where the lighting isn't good.
You might be able to get away with mounting an extension to the existing box, then using a box cover with conduit knockout and a cable clamp you could run your cable out the front of the box instead of through the side knockouts.
Related Topic
- Walls – How to route an unknown amount of wires through an outside wall
- Electrical – Is this an adequate junction box wire job using a standard electric box? (pic included)
- Electrical – How to chain edison bulbs together with a junction box?-
- Run a cable straight into a junction box
- Electrical – Moving electrical outlet 3 feet to the left
- Electrical – Is this electrical junction in the attic up to code or reasonable
Best Answer
I would use a sharp knife, a so called utility knife, if I had one handy, but would try my moderately well sharpened pocket knife if that was all I had.
EDIT It may be that all one has to do is to pierce a "ring" with a knife or even a flat blade screwdriver and then pulling propagates the tear as the inside is pulled out.
EDIT2 The fact that the ring feature is convex suggests that the designers envisioned the removal could be with a slicing action with a blade parallel to the plane of the rings. For a right handed person I could imagine holding the box with the left hand with the inside of the left forearm braced against the chest.
The knife would be held in the right hand (cutting edge toward the thumb) with the right elbow braced against the person's ribs. The cut would be made by pulling the knife so that in the event of a slip the right forearm would contact the chest and stop the movement of the knife. After slicing 90 deg the box would be rotated 90 deg to continue the cut . . .
Alternatively, the box could be held down on a flat surface and the knife held with the cutting edge away from the thumb. The removal would be with a slicing action from above then the box flipped over for slicing the remainder.