electrical outlets in great rooms

[rebecca]

I NEED ADVICE. I AM IN THE PROCESS OF PLANNING AND BUILDING A NEW HOME WITH A GREAT ROOM. WHAT IS THE BEST WAY TO INSTALL SEVERAL ELECTRICAL OUTLETS IN A HARDWOOD FLOOR SO THEY WILL HIDDEN. THE ROOM IS 18x24 AND I WOULD LIKE TO PUT IN SEVERAL OUTLETS SO THAT FURNITURE CAN BE REARRANGED?

[Wgoodrich]

Floor receptacles must be installed using a listed floor receptacle box. There are many styles. Just go to an electrical supply house and shop for the type you want. Just make sure they are listed as a floor receptacle.

Be aware a floor receptacle more than 18" from teh wall can not serve to meet the 6'/12' rule along the walls required in 210.52 of the NEC for living areas.

[suemarkp]

This is difficult, and may be rather expensive. There are normal floor outlet boxes, and some of those come with a brass circle that can totally cover the receptacle (they have a coin slot to help you unscrew the cover). But you'll have these 1.5" brass circles in your floor at various spots, and you may not like that (unless you make a floor inlay pattern with brass circles...)

There are more industrial floor boxes meant for conference rooms. These are a large floor box with a lid that flips up and also has little holes for cords so you can close the door on the cords. The tough part here will be getting box lids that are woodgrain, expecially woodgrain that matches your floor. These boxes are usually well over $100 each.

It may be allowable to have a floor carpenter make some kind of hinged flooring piece that can use to cover your floor box (or perhaps a wedge that lays into the floor to cover a normal floor outlet). But I think this may be difficult (unless you're the carpenter and can spend a lot of time on it).

Whatever you do, you must be able to remove the receptacle and gain access to the box wiring without damaging the floor.