My sister asked me to take down her existing range hood so she can do some cabinet painting before the new range hood is delivered and installed on Friday. When I removed the range hood I found that the wire coming through the wall apparently wasn't long enough so whoever put in the range hood added more wire with some wire nuts. This junction was not in a box or protected in any way.
Here's are the questions:
A. Does code allow a junction box to be in the wall behind the range hood where it would protect the junction, but be behind the range hood. Would this constitute an inaccessible junction box.
Or
B. Should the junction box be installed in the cabinet above where the range hood would be mounted, where it would be accessible without removing the range hood. The wires would go through the bottom of the cabinet to where they can be connected to the new range hood.
Pulling new wire to that point isn't an option since we don't know from what point in the circuit the wire is connected.