Outdoor power outlet

[daniel600x]

Hi,

I wonder if in states where metal conduit is required, when installing outdoor power outlet through wall from an existing indoor power outlet, the flexible metal conduit is required going through the wall or just the grey Romex cable is enough?? If remex cable is enough, can the plastic box be used or metal box must be used as well?? Thanks

 

[Snoonyb]

I use a pipe nipple, through a metal box.

 

[bud16415]

I first switch the inside box over to a GFCI outlet then you need to decide will the new box be mounted to the house or will it be inset thru the siding and be housed inside the wall cavity. If outside I then us a sealed box for outside service with a cover that keeps the weather away from the outlet. These boxes have plugs for the holes not used and feet to screw it to the house. I use a nipple as mentioned above screwing into the hole on the back and drill a hole in the same stud bay but offset to the one inside. I fish a romex over from the inside box and out the hole that is drilled close to the nipple size. I use some rubber putty around the hole and push the box in and screw it off. Connecting inside to the load terminals and outside as normal. If the outside is vinyl siding I will sometimes use a vinyl plate that trims out the box.



If insetting the box then it depends on the wall construction type of outside surface/siding etc.



The GFCI can be the outside outlet in the covered box, but I always like the electronics inside the house where the climate is controlled. It is inconvenient when you get a trip so that you have to decide. Most of mine are next to a door so it is not an issue. If the room is a bedroom or behind furniture in a living room then maybe the other way is better.



I just use romex.

I’m not a pro electrician so take my suggestions as such.

 

[daniel600x]

I first switch the inside box over to a GFCI outlet then you need to decide will the new box be mounted to the house or will it be inset thru the siding and be housed inside the wall cavity. If outside I then us a sealed box for outside service with a cover that keeps the weather away from the outlet. These boxes have plugs for the holes not used and feet to screw it to the house. I use a nipple as mentioned above screwing into the hole on the back and drill a hole in the same stud bay but offset to the one inside. I fish a romex over from the inside box and out the hole that is drilled close to the nipple size. I use some rubber putty around the hole and push the box in and screw it off. Connecting inside to the load terminals and outside as normal. If the outside is vinyl siding I will sometimes use a vinyl plate that trims out the box.



If insetting the box then it depends on the wall construction type of outside surface/siding etc.



The GFCI can be the outside outlet in the covered box, but I always like the electronics inside the house where the climate is controlled. It is inconvenient when you get a trip so that you have to decide. Most of mine are next to a door so it is not an issue. If the room is a bedroom or behind furniture in a living room then maybe the other way is better.



I just use romex.

I’m not a pro electrician so take my suggestions as such.

Thank you soo much for this explanation. I plan to do this any day now and you made it easier. Thanks

 

[raymond-]

I did my outdoor new circuit nearly identical to the technique outlined by bub16415. The outside box is surface mounted to the brick exterior as I did not have masonry cutting tools. I figured I'd live with it to see if it bothers me bad enough, in which case I would flush mount it later. I bought about 8 oz of putty only to realize that it was similar to the butyl rubber I already had for automotive use. lah dee dah.

Indoors is an unfinished basement so it was pretty easy to drill through the floor joists with a right angle drill and snake the romex over to the service panel and into a new breaker.

 

[Flyover]

Nice rain barrel @raymond-!

 

[raymond-]

Nice rain barrel @raymond-!

Scored 3 of them for $0 on Freecycle.org. Wish I had good plan which allows me to pipe in and replenish the water closets. Annoys me no end that I'm flushing drinking water down the toilet. First world problem, eh?

 

[Eddie_T]

I hadn't heard of freecycle.org, thanks.

 

[raymond-]

Not working so I have time to scan the free items on Craigslist, Nextdoor, Freecycle...etc. I'm in
Seattle and it's amazing the things people discard which still have great resale value. I learned
to watch ... even have notifications sent to my email/phone.

 

[Sparky617]

I hadn't heard of freecycle.org, thanks.

I find Freecycle is better for getting rid of stuff than finding great stuff.

 

[raymond-]

That depends heavily on the town you're in. Seattle area has nearly 20k members and higher income bracket

 

[Sparky617]

That depends heavily on the town you're in. Seattle area has nearly 20k members and higher income bracket

Our area a higher end market as well with a population in the greater metro area of over 2M. To find good stuff you need to kind of religiously watch the notifications and subscribe to get postings as they go up. If you wait for the summary the good stuff is usually gone. The instant notifications can overwhelm your inbox. I'm not in an acquire stuff mode these days, so I'll use it to get rid of stuff, but find Facebook market place reaches a wider audience, faster.

 

[daniel600x]

I did my outdoor new circuit nearly identical to the technique outlined by bub16415. The outside box is surface mounted to the brick exterior as I did not have masonry cutting tools. I figured I'd live with it to see if it bothers me bad enough, in which case I would flush mount it later. I bought about 8 oz of putty only to realize that it was similar to the butyl rubber I already had for automotive use. lah dee dah.

Indoors is an unfinished basement so it was pretty easy to drill through the floor joists with a right angle drill and snake the romex over to the service panel and into a new breaker.
View attachment 26184 View attachment 26183

This looks actually very clean. Thanks for sharing

 

[ctviggen]

The GFCI can be the outside outlet in the covered box, but I always like the electronics inside the house where the climate is controlled. It is inconvenient when you get a trip so that you have to decide. Most of mine are next to a door so it is not an issue. If the room is a bedroom or behind furniture in a living room then maybe the other way is better.

It's definitely a mixed bag. I like the GFCI on the outside, as then you know there's a GFCI in the circuit. And you know when they trip. They do sell testers, but then you have to test...and find what tripped. For instance, my wife's parents had a house. The box on the deck had a non-GFCI outlet. I used my tester on it, and the GFCI did trip. Took me a while to find out where it was (in the bathroom near the box).

Had an older house, where the only GFCI for all the bathrooms was...in the garage. Took forever to figure that out. Now, that was an older house, so new codes wouldn't allow that, but I always wanted to bypass that and put individual GFCIs in each bathroom. I never did, though. (Too many other things to fix.)

 

[bud16415]

It's definitely a mixed bag. I like the GFCI on the outside, as then you know there's a GFCI in the circuit. And you know when they trip. They do sell testers, but then you have to test...and find what tripped. For instance, my wife's parents had a house. The box on the deck had a non-GFCI outlet. I used my tester on it, and the GFCI did trip. Took me a while to find out where it was (in the bathroom near the box).

Had an older house, where the only GFCI for all the bathrooms was...in the garage. Took forever to figure that out. Now, that was an older house, so new codes wouldn't allow that, but I always wanted to bypass that and put individual GFCIs in each bathroom. I never did, though. (Too many other things to fix.)

You are correct. There are stickers you can use that tell the user that the circuit is indeed a GFCI controlled at another location and you could mark inside the weather cover the location. Mine are right next to the outside doors at 3 places so that gives me good coverage for hedge trimmers and Christmas lights and it is straight forward where the GFCI is inside. If I need one where it would back up to a bedroom or something for sure I don’t want to walk thru the house in muddy boots to reset a GFCI.

It is a matter of personal preference. Code addresses all the nuts and bolts of wiring, but doesn’t really spell out the logic of where things are located to well. I hate a house that has gangs of switches all over a room and nothing seems to correlate with what it is turning on.

 

[ctviggen]

I'm with you, there. Rented a house with multiple switches where I never did figure out what they did.

I gutted a room in my raised ranch and redid a lot of the wiring (which I had inspected by the town). I paid for some of the wiring to get done, as I just couldn't do it all. The electricians I used ran some wiring around the outside of the room for outlets. To join at least two of them, they used 12/3 then just capped the red wire in each box. Technically allowed by code, but is something I would never do (why is there a red wire? Where does this go?).

 

[BvilleBound]

I agree with the previous posts. First, it is more convenient for the user if a GFCI is installed in the extrerior recep - even if another GFCI is in-line on the interior. That way, (a) the external user definitely knows the recep is GFCI proected, and (b) the user can typically reset it easily if it blows. (A trip on one GFCI downstream will typically not also trip a GFCI upstream -- but distance matters.)

Here is a common example: I was doing pro bono 'help our neighbor' work on his external deck and stairs. The external recep on his garage was not GFCI (and there were no stickers or notes) -- so I let hime know this was unsafe for the work I was doing. He told me the recep was connected to a GFCI inside the garage, so no problem. Except this is a problem.. If the GFCI trips inside his garage, I cannot reset it. I have to call him (if he is home) and wait for him to reset the GFCI inside his garage.

An electrician would obviously say, "This is why you need separate circuits!" I agree, and we have lots of 'extra' circuits on our new beach house, so lights, appliances, receps and external receps are all on different circuits -- for each room. Nothing is 'chained' together. You can also install a master breaker / GFCI / AFCI in the panel to protect each circuit. This is the ideal solution, however, and existing homes and remodels often have a minimal number of circuits.

Even an 'optimum' solution does not solve the challenge for people working outside a home. To avoid problems, install another GFCI in every external recep. Typically, they can reset it without entering your home. Worst case, they will also need to reset an internal GFCI or breaker.

I hope this is helpful.

Mark

 

[bud16415]

Just as a side note and a little odd use I put my GFCIs that are inside next to the door where an outside reg outlet is placed. Last Christmas I plugged all my outside lights into my 3 outlets by the 3 doors and around 11:00 each night I didn’t put my coat and boots on and go out in the snow to turn the lights off. Instead I went around and pushed the test buttons. Next evening around dark I pressed the resets. I plan on doing it this way again this year.

So I guess if you lived in the city and didn’t want anyone using your power you could just trip them until you needed them.

 

[Eddie_T]

The only GFCI trips I hear of are nuisance trips so I'm glad I don't have any. I did have a GFCI connector on a PTHP unit which gave me a problem and I lifted the green wire. I checked the chassis voltage to ground and found none plus there was no exposed chassis when the cover was in place.

 

[afjes_2016]

.

I agree with the previous posts. First, it is more convenient for the user if a GFCI is installed in the extrerior recep - even if another GFCI is in-line on the interior. That way, (a) the external user definitely knows the recep is GFCI proected, and (b) the user can typically reset it easily if it blows. (A trip on one GFCI downstream will typically not also trip a GFCI upstream -- but distance matters.)
...

I am not quite sure what you are saying here. If there are multiple GFCI receptacles on a single circuit being wired correctly means that all are wired to "Line" side of each of the GFCI receptacles. This method is perfectly acceptable. Being wired like this one GFCI will not affect another one on the same circuit. Your theory I believe is saying that if the GFCIs are wired "load" then one can affect the other in tripping. You would not wire multiple gFCI receptacles on the same circuit as "load" to each GFCI downstream.
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