Am I cheap? (metal content)

If you are going to reuse steel boxes like that, inspect them carefully for things like cracked or buggered threads on the screw ears, and toss the questionable ones. You don't want to go through all the trouble of building the conduit system and running all the wires, and then have the screw ear break off or strip out.

I'm all for reusing good old parts, but you have to check them over first - before you waste an hour or more installing them, finding out they are bad, and then removing them to replace with a good one. That $50 of labor time wasted just negated the savings of reusing a $1 box.

And building inspectors will get very picky when they see cheesy stuff like that - one or two knockouts, okay, but more than that and they start checking every little detail carefully...

When they see several 8-32 box holes reamed out to 10-32 or 1/4-20 with odd screws to mount the mud-rings, that sets off alarm bells.

I've seen installations where kids came in overnight and popped /all/ the box knockouts on a house under construction, the electrician bought two full cartons of snap-in hole plugs in all the holes to close them, and the inspector made him change out all the boxes before the house would pass electrical final. There is a rule he cited covering the situation, don't ask me to quote it.

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110.12

' I seem to recall reading that boxes must be free of rust, but that's something that is overlooked to a great degree here in Western Washington if so. If your building project takes as long as mine has taken, you're lucky to have boxes that haven't rusted away.

Harold

You dare post on rcm w/o knowing The Law?????????

Never ever ever ever never ever ever ever never never ever ever....

throw ANYTHING away. Ever.... Re-use, OK, scavenge, OK, but never throw away.... It's the HSM law.... Even accepting money for scrap (other than burnt wire/corroded plumbing) is questionable.... But giving ME stuff is OK.... :) May help me drown sooner....

Probably no worse than many of us here. One of my recent projects was building a few lathe dogs. They're made from 3/8" smooth rod, bent around a mandrel, tail welded on, a nut brazed in the other side. Probably no way that this was a money-saver, but it builds more skills than buying off of ebay.

If you start washing out your used toilet paper, then I'll start to worry about you...... Ken.

Thats cheap. Way cool

Gunner

"The Democratic Party is the party of this popular corruption. The heart of the Democratic Party and its activist core is made up of government unions, government dependent professions (teachers, social workers, civil servants); special interest and special benefits groups (abortion rights, is a good example) that feed off the government trough; and ethnic constituencies, African Americans being the most prominent, who are disproportionately invested in government jobs and in programs that government provides.

" The Democratic Party credo is 'Take as much of the people's money as politically feasible, and use that money to buy as many of the people's votes as possible'. Tax cuts are a threat to this Democratic agenda. Consequently, Democrats loathe and despise them." -Semi-reformed Leftist David Horowitz

Toilet PAPER?? You pee on the corn cob to get the brown stuff off.

Actually, since new boxes are so cheap, you likely cost yourself more time and money by trying to re-use the old ones, plus the cost of welding wire, electricity, etc.

Then too, I like the professional appearance that new boxes contribute to a wiring job, and I like to walk away from any job proud of what I've done. I'm even particular about the cover plates that I use on the boxes.

Then, that's just me.

Harry C.

Corn cob?

Nah, that's the traditional function of your left hand! :-)

Harry C.

well, I think I can "bottom that" , so to speak, but not personally - I had a co-worker years ago who claimed that he had a friend (get the drift of this) who discovered that in his apt he paid for heat, but not for hot water. so he got an old car radiator and a fan and ran hot water through it to heat his place rather than use the electric heat - of course it probably actually cost 1,000 times as much, but to him it was "free"

That's not nearly as dumb (or expensive) as it sounds IF the building has a natural gas, propane, oil or coal fired hot water boiler. And IF the guy reroutes the water back to the cold-water line for reheating instead of dumping it down the sink.

I've worked on a few 150-unit small apartment (studios and

1-bedroom) buildings where each unit has a big 40-gallon regular gas domestic water heater and a heating coil in the air conditioning handler (hall drop ceiling) for heat.

Even after figuring in a small Grundfos wet-rotor pump and a motor-operated water valve it's still cheaper than installing a separate wall furnace and split AC. Much cheaper than a heat pump.

Of course, the same building had to turn off the breakers to all the AC Service Plugs on the roof, seems the tenants who had their power cut off for non-payment were running cords down into their units...

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That sounds like a good way to give the other residents a case of lead poisoning from the solder in the radiator.

Jim

Jim... cold water line being the "return" of a hot water heating system where the hot water line would be the "source". Closed loop system... Ken.