Opinions requested: "Attractive" surface mount molding for shop / garage power wiring

[Jim Neeley]

I'll be closing next month on a new home. We're now empty-nesters and it's just what my bride wants and I like it because of the 4-car garage (3 wide, one tandem). The plan is for my wife to use one stall part-time for unloading her minivan and the rest becomes my shop. I couldn't be happier!!

The garage already has a nearly-empty breaker panel with 100A service but I'm a big fan of lots of lights, lots of 120V and 240V outlets and (generally) on separate breakers. My quandry is the inside of the garage is nicely finished with white-painted sheetrock. Hence my quandry. I'm loathe to tear out all of the sheet rock (outside walls are insulated) to run wire, yet I'm sure my wife would not be a fan of surface mounting EMT conduit or armored cabling. The majority of the outlets will be along the walls although a couple may drop from the 9.5' ceiling. The strings of lights are also obviously roof-mounted.

I believe my best solution will involve surface wire molding but figure someone here has been down this path before and might be willing to share their experience and offer a recommendation. The breaker panel is munted in the back wall of the tandem stall so there will be a fair run to get to the various outlets. As a resuly I'm expecting I'd start with a large molding at the panel and split off to smaller molding once out of the tandem.

I'm looking for a solution where the materials alone won't kill me, as a rough calc with one supplier of commercial wiremold had the molding & receptacle boxes exceeding $1,500, which is more than I'd like to spend. What have been your experiences? Any brand / model or series recommendation? Living in Alaska, shipping on anything mail-order will be impractical due to freight rates; I just don't need bulletproof.

Opinions and advice welcome!!

Jim in Alaska

[Rick Potter]

For a lot less than $1500, you could get an electrician to put a hole every so far apart, and use his drill extensions to run wire behind the drywall, then fix the holes. I am not sure how this would work if the garage has insulation behind it. In Alaska, if there is no insulation in the garage, you might be better off with the insulation and emt.

Another possibility is running emt around at ceiling level with the boxes up high, or simple drops for the boxes.

Third possibility is running emt and boxes where you want them, then use 1" spacers and put pegboard over the walls. Might be handy.

Fourth possibility: Run the emt on the bottom, and/or top, and cover it with cabinets or benches.

Now I will let the experts take over.

Rick Potter

[Todd Burch]

You could create a smaller-ish fur-down all the way around the garage, and then just deal with holes for vertical drops.

Personally, I would not want to see conduit/emt everywhere. It's just a dust catcher.

Todd

[Matt Meiser]

You can buy colored EMT.

[John Lifer]

You say insulation. If it is just fiberglass, you can run drops from attic/crawlspace down. Is a pain, but can be done. I'd run several and put a quad box in the wall at each location (120v) I think this would be better than emt. and surface mount is not much better option.

[Van Huskey]

If the insulation is just fiberglass batts I would do this. I would cut a horizontal section of the drywall out about 24" wide centered on where I wanted my wire run (about 50-52 high boxes for me) run my wire then naile the drywall back up and cover the horizontal seams with a french cleat system then just tape and mud the vertical seams. When I build my new shop I don't plan to tape and mud the long horizontal seams of the drywall since I will cover them with french cleats which add tons of versatility to a shop and cut down on the drywall labor.

[Jerry Hillenburg]

If I had that situation, I would run a 3/4" X 5 1/2" board like a chair-rail all around the garage, screwing it on for easy removal. Before installing chair-rail, cut a 3 1/2" high 'slot' in the drywall all around the garage - this slot will be behind the chair rail. Remove and trash the 3 1/2" pieces of drywall. After installing receptacle boxes, attach wiring and compressed air piping to the studs where the drywall was. To add depth to the slot, you could cut a shallow notch the height of the slot into all studs. You could also drill holes in studs for wire runs.

Install all electrical and compressed air receptacles above or below chair-rail flush with drywall using the slot for access into the stud cavity. At the breaker box totally remove drywall above and below the breaker box stud cavity - it will be covered by a two pieces of 1/4" or 1/2" plywood screwed to the outer surface of drywall. This will give you access to the breaker box all around the garage and access to the breaker box from attic for ceiling wiring. To get around doors remove the door header trim and replace with a 3/4" x 5 1/2" header board extending it over vertical casing trim 5" or so. Cut your slot behind header board - fish wiring behind drywall verically from the chair-rail slot to the header slot.

After the wiring and compressed air piping is done install chair-rail and 1/2" plywood panels above and below breaker box with screws. If you find you need to modify or add receptacles in the future it will be super easy (if it were mine, I WOULD have to modify in the future). The chair-rail will be a nice accent and help protect the walls. Put 3/4" wheatherstripping above and below slot if you think you may have issues with air infiltration.

I am sure you are a do-it-yourselfer. You could do this for less that $500. All the materials can be purchased locally. If it were mine, the chair-rail would be a low grade pine sanded, edge round-over routed then finished. It is amazing how good low grade pine looks when properly finished.

The wiring is relatively easy. Buy a copy of the book "Wiring Simplified" by H.P. Richter (and others). 2011 version is the 43 edition they have updated it several times in the last 80 years. I think every shop should have a copy of this book. $9.39 Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Wiring-Simplif.../dp/0971977976

[Peter Kelly]

You can buy colored EMT.

Use a different colour for each circuit for a cool rainbow effect.

I think even regular galvanised EMT really looks good if you can do a neat install job of it. Certainly wouldn't cost $1,500.- to do a garage. You won't even notice it once the space is all filled up with machines and whatnot.

[Rollie Meyers]

I'll be closing next month on a new home. We're now empty-nesters and it's just what my bride wants and I like it because of the 4-car garage (3 wide, one tandem). The plan is for my wife to use one stall part-time for unloading her minivan and the rest becomes my shop. I couldn't be happier!!

The garage already has a nearly-empty breaker panel with 100A service but I'm a big fan of lots of lights, lots of 120V and 240V outlets and (generally) on separate breakers. My quandry is the inside of the garage is nicely finished with white-painted sheetrock. Hence my quandry. I'm loathe to tear out all of the sheet rock (outside walls are insulated) to run wire, yet I'm sure my wife would not be a fan of surface mounting EMT conduit or armored cabling. The majority of the outlets will be along the walls although a couple may drop from the 9.5' ceiling. The strings of lights are also obviously roof-mounted.

I believe my best solution will involve surface wire molding but figure someone here has been down this path before and might be willing to share their experience and offer a recommendation. The breaker panel is munted in the back wall of the tandem stall so there will be a fair run to get to the various outlets. As a resuly I'm expecting I'd start with a large molding at the panel and split off to smaller molding once out of the tandem.

I'm looking for a solution where the materials alone won't kill me, as a rough calc with one supplier of commercial wiremold had the molding & receptacle boxes exceeding $1,500, which is more than I'd like to spend. What have been your experiences? Any brand / model or series recommendation? Living in Alaska, shipping on anything mail-order will be impractical due to freight rates; I just don't need bulletproof.

Opinions and advice welcome!!

Jim in Alaska

Just a quick note, "Wiremold" is a brand of surface raceway, here is their website www.wiremold.com IMHO it would be cheaper to remove the drywall, do the wiring, & then rehang & finish the drywall, if it was a DIY job. If it was subbed out then who knows how much...

[Rod Sheridan]

Surface mount EMT...............Rod.

[Alan Schaffter]

"Attractive" looking surface mount wiring is an oxymoron! Jerry and Rollie have the right idea- much, much easier and cheaper to cut away a strip of drywall, run the wiring, install the boxes, and reinstall the drywall. I have done it many times over the years, most recently when I ran 4" PVC DC ducting to the ceiling for my TS over-blade dust pickup.

I think it is much easier to run and keep track of Romex than the individual conductors that are run in Wiremold or conduit. Romex and plastic boxes are certainly way less expensive than the all metal of the other methods!!

If you are careful removing the dry wall, you can reuse it- add mud, seam tape, and paint and you are done. You don't need a wide seam taper and smooth finish expected in home interior walls.

[David Hawxhurst]

assuming you have access above i would fish the wire behind the dry wall and use retrofit boxes (mark box opening on the wall, cut opening, put box in and the screws will flip up tabs that tighten against the dry to hold the box in place). i think its magnepull (or something similar) uses magnets to pull the fish lead down the inside of the dry wall. makes fishing through insulated wall a lot easier.

[Ben Hatcher]

I tend to agree that a single strip cut along the wall would be the easiest...even easier than trying to fish wire into an attic and down the walls into retrofit boxes. If you want to use peg board or cabinets to cover a sloppy mud job, go for it. Just don't skip the tape and mud on any walls that share a wall with the living space.

[David Hostetler]

Do it right. Cut out the path for the wiring in the sheet rock, pull your wire, and patch up the sheet rock behind you. It's a bit of a pain at first, but well worth the effort if exposed conduit / armored cable won't do... I have to insulate so all of my sheet rock is coming down, which is going to be a HUGE job. God willing one that is worth the effort!

[Rob Russell]

If I had that situation, I would run a 3/4" X 5 1/2" board like a chair-rail all around the garage, screwing it on for easy removal. Before installing chair-rail, cut a 3 1/2" high 'slot' in the drywall all around the garage - this slot will be behind the chair rail. Remove and trash the 3 1/2" pieces of drywall. After installing receptacle boxes, attach wiring and compressed air piping to the studs where the drywall was. To add depth to the slot, you could cut a shallow notch the height of the slot into all studs. You could also drill holes in studs for wire runs.

Install all electrical and compressed air receptacles above or below chair-rail flush with drywall using the slot for access into the stud cavity. At the breaker box totally remove drywall above and below the breaker box stud cavity - it will be covered by a two pieces of 1/4" or 1/2" plywood screwed to the outer surface of drywall. This will give you access to the breaker box all around the garage and access to the breaker box from attic for ceiling wiring. To get around doors remove the door header trim and replace with a 3/4" x 5 1/2" header board extending it over vertical casing trim 5" or so. Cut your slot behind header board - fish wiring behind drywall verically from the chair-rail slot to the header slot.

After the wiring and compressed air piping is done install chair-rail and 1/2" plywood panels above and below breaker box with screws. If you find you need to modify or add receptacles in the future it will be super easy (if it were mine, I WOULD have to modify in the future). The chair-rail will be a nice accent and help protect the walls. Put 3/4" wheatherstripping above and below slot if you think you may have issues with air infiltration.

I am sure you are a do-it-yourselfer. You could do this for less that $500. All the materials can be purchased locally. If it were mine, the chair-rail would be a low grade pine sanded, edge round-over routed then finished. It is amazing how good low grade pine looks when properly finished.

The wiring is relatively easy. Buy a copy of the book "Wiring Simplified" by H.P. Richter (and others). 2011 version is the 43 edition they have updated it several times in the last 80 years. I think every shop should have a copy of this book. $9.39 Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Wiring-Simplif.../dp/0971977976

Jerry,

Some of what you suggest likely violates local building codes and it would certainly weaken the framing of the garage walls.

When you're running NM cable ("Romex" is a brand of said cable), the cable needs to be protected from damage. If the cable isn't going to be deep enough, you'd need to stall nail plates at every stud and that still wouldn't prevent screws attaching boxes to the 3/4 board.

Cutting a notch in a stud effectively reduces the strength of the stud to the smallest portion of the stud. Granted, vertical studs in walls aren't as bad as floor/ceiling joists, but notching framing members is just wrong.

Jim,

I agree with the suggestion about cutting out 24" strips of sheetrock, wiring where you can get at the studs and then fixing the sheetrock. It'll definitely cost less (and probably go faster) than dealing with all of the individual conductors run in raceway.

Rob