# Mounting surface boxes on acrylic stucco and styrofoam



## telsa (May 22, 2015)

When confronted with gorgeous marble facing -- which is as injury prone as glass -- I went underground, instead.

The technique is to trench -- use nothing but GRC/RMC/IMC -- taped -- and set your WP boxes -- away from the building -- yet still very close.

Use Bell boxes that have enough hubs to permit one of them to be the support. A dead-ended run of RMC -- down into a plug of concrete -- below ground level -- makes the box solid.

The other hub is the point of wire entry -- with the stub travelling down and off to the left or right.

I got mine in before the hardscape. 

The use of GRC makes for strength. One can transition to PVC after the first stick. Since my Bell boxes were all terminal ends -- with just one hot, one neutral and one green -- 1/2" was fine and dandy.

Ditching may look VERY practical after you think about what %$#@ the finished surface would do to your rep -- and your bottom line.

Just a thought.


----------



## telsa (May 22, 2015)

I'd also look into whether it would be practical to bore all the way through -- wet or dry -- with diamonds. 

Then you could omit the surface raceway.

You could slip in a GRC nipple -- cut exactly to length -- and epoxy it to the core of the wall.

Then you'd transition to something very rigid -- say a WP Bell box.

Cutting the foam with a 'hot knife' is old hat. So the Bell box could be all the way flush -- or nearly so.

I'd test this on scrap materials before proceeding.


----------



## Vintage Sounds (Oct 23, 2009)

Unfortunately I haven't found anything better than toggle bolts for these situations. It's not great for straps, but at least I was able to hang some A/C disconnects this way. The only thing behind the styrofoam was Densglas sheathing.


----------



## GrayHair (Jan 14, 2013)

When faced with surface mounting on stucco, I used super-long screws into the framing or block with tubular spacers to support the device. If caught unaware, I'd run to a hardware store, grab a piece or two of the tubing that runs from the water closet to the shutoff and cut-to-fit on site. Worked well with boxes and camera mounts.

Never did any conduit on stucco.


----------



## wcord (Jan 23, 2011)

GrayHair said:


> When faced with surface mounting on stucco, I used super-long screws into the framing or block with tubular spacers to support the device. If caught unaware, I'd run to a hardware store, grab a piece or two of the tubing that runs from the water closet to the shutoff and cut-to-fit on site. Worked well with boxes and camera mounts.
> 
> Never did any conduit on stucco.


I've done the spacer route too, but was hoping someone had a better ( faster ) idea.
Now that it's getting cold out, customer wants 10 car plugs:no:.
Unfortunately, surface conduit is the only way to do this. 
Whoever came up with the idea of Styrofoam and acrylic stucco, should be made to work with the crap afterwards.


----------



## darren79 (Dec 20, 2011)

wcord said:


> I've done the spacer route too, but was hoping someone had a better ( faster ) idea.
> Now that it's getting cold out, customer wants 10 car plugs:no:.
> Unfortunately, surface conduit is the only way to do this.
> Whoever came up with the idea of Styrofoam and acrylic stucco, should be made to work with the crap afterwards.


Little early to be doing car plugs, those are usually done in January during the coldest week of the year.


----------



## gryczewskip (Oct 27, 2015)

So true

Sent from my E6782 using Tapatalk


----------



## wcord (Jan 23, 2011)

darren79 said:


> Little early to be doing car plugs, those are usually done in January during the coldest week of the year.


told them the cost will be double if they wait any longer :laughing:
Last set of plugs we did for them was in February, so they are learning :whistling2:


----------



## Heavyritefoot (Sep 11, 2015)

I think the worst part is dealing with the PVC conduit hard to clip to the stuco. PVC to me ouside looks like a disaster with dealing with the different temperatures and being outside. Is there a way to feed the plugs from the back of the box?


----------



## Helmut (May 7, 2014)

Cut a piece of plywood and paint to match the house. Anchor the plywood with long tapcons in corners and liquid nails the plywood to the stucco in the middle.

Mount boxes to painted plywood.


----------



## Bogart (Jul 20, 2015)

Use a sleeve over your mounting hardware. If mounting a box going through 2" of foam+stucco use 4"tap cons then sleeve something simple over the tap on like 3/8" x2" rigid nipple. The tap con will still grab and then once the sleeve bottoms out the box will push up against the sleeve preventing it from bottoming out

Ideally though...if this is new construction....in the future I would just anchor 3/8" or 1/4"x 6" allthread stubs using hollow wall anchors then you can depth adjust and use nuts and washers to prevent push through on the backside.


----------

