How can I bring this forward so the junction box is accessible?
Do I just get enough single gang extension rings to bring it out far enough to sit flush with the drywall?
Or do I add an access panel on the drywall?
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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Ouch, what a mess. No ground wire, un-jacketed wires, wires running into a metal box holes without protection, not enough slack in the junction box. I'm guessing that is copper wire, but there is a small possibility it is aluminum which if so you need extra care with, which wouldn't have been done in the day.
Best it to pull new romex through that FMC (it looks like there is sufficient space to do this, but pictures can be deceiving) , all the way from where the wires start to where they go. The junction boxes should be removed completely.
If you cannot do the above, the first box must be moved down. Both because it needs to attach to the FMC (with the proper connector) so the wire is protected and also to provide enough slack. When the house was built you probably were allowed to use the FMC as your ground, but that isn't current code - I'm not sure if you can legally say it was a minor change and thus the old code applies, but even if you can you really should put in a proper ground wire.
Hell, I'm impressed someone ran the wire through FMC.
Is that the back side of sheathing with wallpaper on it? What's that other box for, exposed to the inside of the wall? Was the sheetrock added years later? So many questions, though I've seen this kind of stuff a lot (old houses and low income areas).
I'm in Chicago. The code here requires conduit. Which is funny that they would try and follow that but not how it connect it to the junction boxes.
This is (well was) a finished basement. I'm pretty that box inside the wall is in a concrete wall. When they finished the basement, my only guess is they didn't want to deal with that wall and just added a wooden framed one against it to hang the sheet rock and make pretty. The house is from the 1950s, not a low income area, just old. It all looks like someone who knows enough to be dangerous. When I moved in, I replaced just about every outlet and added GFCI since it didn't have any. That alone saved me from the house burning down while I was on vacation a few months later.