Electrical Ceiling Drop

[twistsol]

I need to tear out the ceiling of the garage next weekend and thought I would take the opportunity to do some wiring. I've seen outlets swinging on heavy cords with a wire braid strain relief around the cord and want to put a couple of those in my garage to reduce the number of cords on the floor.

Is this something I can pick up at home depot or do I need a specialty electric supply source to get them? Any links where I could buy such a thing online?

[dbhost]

Just for understanding sake here. Does this mean you are not going to be putting the ceiling rock back up?

[twistsol]

The ceiling will definitely be going back up. We're installing radiant floor heating in the house and the garage is under the master bedroom, bath, and dining room and my wife's office.

[sd]

I'm not sure if you'd find this at Home Despot. The wire cable gripper is called a Kellems Grip. If you Google for that name you'll find some online dealers.

[RAFlorida]

Would you be looking for one

of these: http://www.drillspot.com/products/11...Support_Grip#?
Prices aren't too bad.
Hope it helps. And good luck with your project.

[LCHIEN]

I have a couple of spots in my garage (no ceiling sheetrock, open to rafters) where I mounted 120V, 20A AC outlets to the joists.
Next to the outlet I placed a 1x2x17" spanning two joists and ty-wrapped the extension cord to that 1x2. That allowed a short loop so there is no strain on the extension cord connection to the socket and I can still reach up and unplug the cord.
The extension cords are those 10 gauge 24 footers with three lighted outlets along the length and another outlet on the end.

I power my air compressor from one and my BT3000 from the other each on the first outlet which is about 6 feet from the ceiling and use the remainder of the cord as a utility outlet if i need power in the center of the shop for a portable tool and I'm not using the main tool.

The weight on the ty-wrap is only the weight of about 8-foot of cord and one plugged-in short length of tool cord. THe rest of the extension cord rests on the ground. So far this has worked fine for over a year.

If you have a fully sheetrocked ceiling I imagine you can screw an eye-bolt into the ceiling joist and do the same. I feel more comfortable having the cord ty-wrapped at two points to prevent a single "pivot" point for movement around the ty-wrap point which means I"d avoid an eye and either put bar up with spacers from the ceiling or perhaps a long eye bolt so you can ty-wrap it at the eye and an inch or two above that.

[twistsol]

I'm not sure if you'd find this at Home Despot. The wire cable gripper is called a Kellems Grip. If you Google for that name you'll find some online dealers.

That's the ticket. Thanks.

[JR]

You should be able to find what you need at HD. I had good success asking someone in the electric department.

FWIW - I elected to put regular outlets in the ceiling, due to cost reasons. I have four quad boxes in the ceiling, and I just couldn't econimically replicate that with a strain relief setup. I think I have had one plug come loose in the 9 months since I set it up, and that was due to operator error - it likely would have happened with either setup.

JR

[cgallery]

One other option may be adding receptacles with twist-lock connections, and then adding the twist-lock plugs to the tools you want to connect at the ceiling. Probably not handy if you want to move tools around a lot, though (as it would require a ladder to reach the ceiling-mounted receptacle to disconnect).

[Mr__Bill]

They make twist-lock receptacles that are made to take the weight of a cord hanging down from them. Also available are twist-lock plugs with the strain relief mesh built into them. A drop box on a short cord is real handy and you don't necessarily have to have twist-locks on your tools. The BORGs may not carry them but an electrical supply house will. As I recall they are rather pricey. For about the same price you can put in a power cord on a reel.


Bill,

[twistsol]

Thanks all, I'll look into the twist lock receptacles as well, I hadn't thought of that. With the economy the way it is, saving money is probably a good idea right now more than ever. It also solves the problem of getting them out of the way easily since, by order of LOML, the shop must be a garage once it gets dark. That rule has been suspended for a couple of weeks since she thinks having heat in the house is important in Minnesota.

[BobSch]

Here's another one that connects directly to the box: http://www.drillspot.com/products/43...ight_Mesh_Grip

[cgallery]

Thanks all, I'll look into the twist lock receptacles as well, I hadn't thought of that. With the economy the way it is, saving money is probably a good idea right now more than ever. It also solves the problem of getting them out of the way easily since, by order of LOML, the shop must be a garage once it gets dark. That rule has been suspended for a couple of weeks since she thinks having heat in the house is important in Minnesota.

Graybar can be a good source for some of this stuff. I'm sometimes surprised at how low some of their prices can be (in light of the fact that some of their prices are outrageous). A knowledgeable salesperson can be very helpful in this regard.