How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall?
How do i fix this ugly hole in the wall?
An electrician 'fixed' an issue by making this hole in a basement cinder block wall.
.. how do I put that box back in or fix the wall or something?
Inside the box are two capped (hot) wires.
The pipe seems to be copper. Doesn't bend or anything. It can't (at least easily) be pushed back in.
I had wanted to use cement paste.. but like what do I do about the box? I guess I could paste everything except the metal pipe but geez: then i still have this sketchy box hanging out.
Images: https://imgur.io/a/yBh2QBD (posted from mobile and don't think the images went through)
Any ideas?
Tell him to come back and finish the job, because that is shit, and you're paying him to do the whole job, not half-ass it.
Funny enough he claimed this was the job and the only way to fully fix it would be to replace the whole wire pipe and break a line up the wall and fix it.. and charge at least a thousand bucks more for the pleasure.
Ridiculous.
Nope. He could have just properly installed the box flush in that wall using plaster of paris or something. He was just to lazy.
Maybe a short talk with a lawyer is not a bad idea if you can afford it.
You probably want to slip some conduit around the wire to protect it from the mortar, patch the hole, then use a surface mount box screwed to the wall with the wire fed in the back.
The wire is inside a copper pipe. The line going to the box is a copper pipe with 2 wires in it. (I think its already protected.)
If that's the case, I'd probaby try to cut the copper pipe back, install a 90 degree fitting and do the rest of what I suggested.
Is that shit to code?
Electrically speaking it is in the proper housing, but the box is not secured, so I would ding it for that at the very least. I agree about cutting the conduit back and putting in a proper secure box and then cementing around the box. You could also use a surface mount box. In that case you would cut the existing conduit back, put a 90 degree elbow with a enough conduit to extend past the wall edge. Patch the wall and then install a surface mount box where the wires are connected in.
Any chance of disconnecting the wire and pulling it out of the conduit? Then you could cut the conduit off inside the wall with a reciprocating saw or better, an oscillating tool, abandoning it.
They make circular conduit cutters not much bigger than the conduit itself. They go for around $25. One of those would easily fit in the opening you have. Be sure to turn the power off to the circuit first though.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/General-Pipe-Cleaners-GPC-1-2-in-Auto-Cut-Copper/1002782800
The conduit is unlikely to be copper, it's usually steel and bent with tools (big levers really) or cut with a hack or jig saw. No way he should have left it like that, it should be flush.
The electrician could claim the wall should be patched my someone else. But that cover looks like an indoor cover, and it absolutely needs an outdoor cover (possibly an outdoor junction box too, can't tell if it is or isn't) to keep our the elements.
This is not competent work at all.