Fire in the hole

Embedded in the floor of the ‘great room’ (and also outside, believe it or not) are a plethora of these Steel City (now Thomas & Betts) floor boxes. They have brass covers, rubber (perished) gaskets and steel internals.

Back when they were new, they probably seemed like a good way to have power out by the big windows without having cords all over the place, or even power outside.

But, brass. Rubber. Steel. These are all things that don’t get along so well with water over the years. You want to take care of them; clean them, make sure they’re sealed. Dry.

Or, not. If what you want is an electrical fire.

To start with, I just thought it would be nice if the cover would sit flush so I didn’t keep stubbing my toes on it.

But no, too much rust under the rubber gasket for it to sit flush. Guess I should pull it out and clean it…

Or maybe not. At this point it’s shop-vac out all the debris (there is lots, seems like this isn’t the first outlet to have burned in this hole) and drop the cover back on.

Then come up with a solution that deals with the four others in this room that don’t have covers. Good thing that we had these disconnected at the breaker box back when we first started poking at the wiring I guess…

And of course, I had to have supervision: