I've never had a call for that problem but have popped a lot of plastic boxes out for various reasons. Adding a plug, a switch,a phone, a TV, a cable for fan switching or other lighting , and my personal favorite, replacing a damaged cable. 99% of the time by another trade. I use P&S gray plastic boxes exclusively because they are the easiest to remove after finish.
My technique is to chamfer the inside of the outer (not stud side) edge of the gypsum a bit, if necessary, to allow me the drive that side of the box into the wall a bit using my hammer and phillips in the screw holes. Then I can use my flat blade to pry the box away from the stud and into the wall enough to cut the nails close to the box with my diags. Needle nose pop the nail tips free to fall into the wall and the box is free.
Sometimes I open the hole up to fit a multi gang, after probing the space I'm about to cut (wobbly works great) to insure there would be no obstruction to installing the larger box. (Nothing quite like pulling that freshly sawed piece of drywall out only to find a vent pipe taking up an inch of YOUR space!!!)
This makes the problem of wrangling the wires while trying to turn the box just so to get the nail supports out of the hole, without blowing out the hole, a lot easier.
Getting the new one in (one the nails have been removed and the nail supports trimmed off) can be challenging if the wires come from both up and down but patience and needle nose pliers will prevail. The issue about the sheathing not reaching into the box? Is heat shrink or tape legal for this? I've been able to arrange the wires to reach so far.
Usually the box will be the same size of a little bit shorter which works well for getting sheathing into the box.
When removing older metal boxes it can be trickier. Some of the old boxes had the nails running through the device space. While that makes getting some devices in impossible it makes removing the box very easy. Put your diags on the nail and hammer away from the stud. The box comes right off and once the nails are out it comes right out of the hole.
The metal boxes with mounting straps almost always require the sawzall.Especially if the original installer was diligent enough to fill all of the nail holes. The sawzall will do it without over cutting the drywall if you have a steady hand but I have had one case where the OI (original installer) ran cable through the stud right above thr bracket and I ended up cutting it. $()!#$%&^$ %$## #@2&&%$% ##%^##
After I calmed down I figured out where the cable came from and went to and found a suitable repair. (Time to calm down = 1/2 hour, time to repair = 1 hour)
Now if they used a 4S and a mud ring tell your client to schedule a good tape and texture/painter behind you.
Changing a P&S 18CU for another P&S 18CU with circuit dead I could probably do in 15 about minutes without any damage.
The more gangs, cables, or differences between boxes the longer it would take and there just may be some repair to be done behind me.
Vince
Last edited by ChicoC10; 08/24/07 04:40 PM.
