Thanks! Re: 1.5" is way to thin for any legal box. I saw them at HD, the normal ones are 2" deep. Re: There's nothing that says you can't mount the box to a piece of wood or to the concrete directly. However, I feel you are not installing your WALLMATE to the manufacturer's recommendsations. You should be using a 2x3 furing strip if you are going to be putting electrical wiring in. This will give plenty of room for a normal box. You are correct. I had planned on framing this 9 foot section in front of the XPS that is why I used the 1 X 3 strips. I could pop them out and use 2 X 3s. RE: The other problem you have here is that running NM cable just under the surface of the drywall isn't going to provide legal protection for it. You are supposed to put the cable in an channel routed in the back (the side AWAY from the drywall). I don't know why most listed conduits wouldn't do the job unless you have goofy local codes. Metal braided conduit sounds like flexible stuff. EMT or rigid would suffice as would AC cable. Wallmate shows the notch in front as I recall, actually ther is a vertical 1/2" plus space between XPS and drywall...if using 2X3 fur strips. You would need to notch horizontally...and the becomes troublesome. Also, I also assume you mean the non metallic (regular) type wiring would need to be in the back side of the XPS...I assume metal coated braided etc is allowed to sit between the XPS and drywall....? Re: There's nothing that says you can't run the wiring up and down like you describe. Yes it makes it longer meaning you use more wire and if it gets way long you can run into voltage drop problems, but I suspect in your case it's not an issue. It does not require multiple circuits (breakers). Ignorance here but a wire comes from the box and goes down to the outlet and you are suggesting it goes back up and over to the next? Is that pipe type stuff that attaches to outlet box better than the metal conduit?? Safer? Cheaper? Perhaps I should just frame these small areas as originall intended...

A lot depends on how much you want to spend. To me, dealing with an outage means we maintain essentials, and not luxuries. That means we keep the gas furnace, water pump, freezer, and refrigerator running, and provide a little CF light in each main room. That's it. OK, it doesn't take that much to keep the computer modem and network up, and a laptop doesn't use much energy, so that too. Maybe a small television set. But that's it. I mean it. :) I don't expect to have all the comforts of home when the power is off. If we can comfortably read our books, take showers, and so on - that's enough for us. We can cook regardless, thanks to the gas stove (just light with a match), and the water heater is gas too. Enough power to run an electric space heater - no way would I pay for that kind of extra genset capacity. We have a gas furnace and a woodstove with backup-powered fan, what else do we really need? I say let the whiny family members whine. Running an electric heater is redundant anyway, if your backup power is a genset. You have an engine making waste heat. Why not just duct in the heat from its radiator if you want some extra? As for fuel, I've seen natural gas fueled gensets that sat for years nearly unmaintained, and started right up when they were needed. The downside is that in a really dire situation nat gas service may be interrupted. But if it's that bad, you're also going to have trouble getting more gasoline or Diesel fuel when you run low. And large capacity onsite liquid fuel storage is a hassle, for where to put it, and keeping it fresh and safe. If you absolutely have to store fuel onsite, at least LPG won't go stale or evaporate. You could also go all out and install a grid-intertie PV system with backup battery and (optionally) genset. Then you can (eventually) pay for your backup system through the reduction in your electric bill from the energy your PV generates year-round.

Boxes can be cut part way into the brick without any real risk to anything. 4x4 boxes 1.25 inches deep with a plaster ring are about as shallow a box as you can use. The height gets to just about 1.75 inches, so a 0.75 space and 0.5 inch drywall means you barely need to cut into the brick. An often easier alternative is to use 2x lumber for the furring strips and get 1.5 inches for work space.

We bought our 1964 house last year with its original electrical. When we moved in, we replaced all of the old switches with decoras and dimmers, and we replaced the outlets (which were all 2-prong) with grounded 3-prong. When we redo the kitchen, we plan to upgrade the circuit box to a 200 amp (or possibly larger to leave room for later additions). To be honest, we did not realize that the outlets were all 2-prong, but we would not have let that deter us, since we had a fairly specific wish list. Things like outlets/outlet covers are simple to replace as long as the electrical is in otherwise good condition. The things that would have been deal breakers for us were: old asbestos duct work; asbestos cottage cheese stuff on the ceiling; no a/c original pipes roof in need of replacement too much wallpaper throughout the house (I HATE stripping wallpaper) Signs that the house had been neglected Things we didn't really care about: Needing new paint or carpet/decorating issues An old kitchen or bathrooms, as long as they were in working order The old electrical outlets and switches Things that I wanted to change, but which were relatively simple to fix