I have a shared wall from my garage and living room. My breaker panel is located in my garage and is on the shared wall with my garage and living room. I am wanting to add a dedicated 20amp outlet to my living room and instead of running the wire through the wall like normal I am wanting to run it along my garage wall to the point I want the outlet in my living room. And from there drills hole through the wall from the garage to the living room for the outlet. Is this allowed? The wire is armorlite and will be protected with a conduit for the few inches it intersects with the wall but not sure if code allows for what I am trying to do here. Basically I am trying to avoid cutting into my drywall and having to replace/patch it when I can Just run the wire along my garage and then "poke it" through to my living room
2 Answers
Poking armored cables through walls is fine, but you need to mind your bend radius...
First off, the NEC permits armored and metal-clad cables for both exposed and concealed work, so there's no issue with taking one through a wall. However, you do need to mind the cable's bend radius when you do so; as a result of this, it may be better to use a flush mounted junction box with a KO faceplate and right-angle fitting to transition the cable into the wall.
...and the garage firestopping, too
Because this is the house/garage wall, not some other interior wall in the house, you'll also want to mind your firestopping a bit. If you're passing the cable through the wall directly, a typical firestopping caulk/sealant product should work provided it's used in accordance with its UL firestop system listing. If you're using a box instead, though, you'll need to use firestop putty pads to seal the box up from the outside.
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Thank you for the information. One more question. Do I need to use a gfci or afci outlet or one of those as a breaker if the main use of this outlet is for a tv stand fireplace? It's not going be a main source of heat but might be on for an hour or two at a time on a lower setting.– Guest30Sep 27 at 16:45
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@Guest30 -- you'll need to use an AFCI breaker unless you tap an existing AFCI-protected receptacle circuit Sep 28 at 4:04
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Thank you. Would this breaker be sufficient? Your friend has shared a link to a Home Depot product they think you would be interested in seeing: homedepot.com/p/…– Guest30Sep 28 at 16:43
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The above afci breaker is compatible with my breaker panel. And sorry to clarify you are saying that if I am putting in a new circuit and outlet, if the outlet receptical is not an AFCI outlet I need an AFCI breaker? Or do I just straight up need an AFCI breaker regardless of the outlet receptical type?– Guest30Sep 28 at 17:31
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The armored wire is fine, but I wouldn't surface mount an electric box in my living room.
(1) Go to the a stud in the garage that borders the wall cavity where you want the outlet, surface mount a box in the garage on that stud, and run your armored cable to that box.
(2) Cut a hole in your living room for a remodel receptacle box.
(3) Punch through the back of the garage box into your wall cavity and feed in romex wire, grabbing it through the remodel box's hole.
Now you can wire the whole thing up without any drywall repair.
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That's what I plan on doing. The mounted box would be in the garage and I would just be placing a normal wall receptical in the living room. My apologies if I wasn't clear on that in my post. I just wasn't sure on code if I would get dinged on resale inspection if I had tha weird looking setup in my garage. But they wouldn't really know I guess unless they took apart the junction box I would put in the garage where the wire enters my living room– Guest30Sep 27 at 4:34
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Armorite makes AC and MC cable. For AC the cable must be "secured" every 4-1/2 ft and within 12 inches of both terminations (NEC 320.30B). For MC the cable must be "secured" every 6 ft and within 12 inches of both terminations (NEC 330.30B). Both have that disqualification for locations "subject to physical damage," so be careful in how you locate it.– pophamSep 27 at 4:58