On 8/14/2008 10:53 PM BobK207 spake thus:

On Aug 14, 9:05 pm, David Nebenzahl wrote:

Apropos another thread now running in Theater III ("Electrical Code
question:"accessibility"), let me pose this general question to all you
experts out the

Does the code (NEC) require that all junction boxes inside walls be
accessible? Or only certain ones? And why?

Let me first say that I have put junction boxes in walls that were not
accessible. Am I now guilty of a crime because of this?

Does this even make sense? Is the general idea that all such boxes be
accessible in case future additions or repairs become necessary?

I'll take a stab at this, not so much from a code point of view but a
common sense & experience point of view.

It's not so much that boxes be accesible but that the junctions
(splices / connections) made in the junction boxes be accessible.

I can honestly say I've never made a connection not in a box or
covered up a box once the connections were made. I've been sorely
tempted (& really wanted to do it, because of the potential time
savings) but I never did it.

Maybe I misunderstood, but I took your reply to mean that one should
always make connections inside a junction box.

Believe me, I would *never ever* make a splice in a cable outside a
junction box. Never. No matter how tempting it might be. That wasn't the
thrust of my question.


--
"In 1964 Barry Goldwater declared: 'Elect me president, and I
will bomb the cities of Vietnam, defoliate the jungles, herd the
population into concentration camps and turn the country into a
wasteland.' But Lyndon Johnson said: 'No! No! No! Don't you dare do
that. Let ME do it.'"

- Characterization (paraphrased) of the 1964 Goldwater/Johnson
presidential race by Professor Irwin Corey, "The World's Foremost
Authority".