what to do with old oven box


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Old 03-27-11, 10:02 AM
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what to do with old oven box

I am in the process of remodeling my kitchen. Previously I had a wall-mounted oven, but now I'm getting a standard range with the stove on top.

This leaves the old oven electrical box over the new counter. Is it acceptable to put some regular old 15a outlets in this box? I assume I'd have to change the breaker as well.

From what I understand, overdoing the gauge of the wire is OK, but the reverse is not. What do you think?
 
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Old 03-27-11, 10:19 AM
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From a safety standpoint having receptacles over the cooktop is a bad idea. The short cord would mean the appliance would need to sit on the cooking surface or the cord would be over a hot burner.

You would need to change the breaker size and add small pigtails to attach the wires to a GFI receptacle. You may also need to change some wiring in the panel. If type SE cable was used you cannot use the bare as a neutral.
 
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Old 03-27-11, 10:27 AM
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The box is over a counter, not the cooktop. There was another outlet for the original cooktop which was used for the new range.

I don't trust myself to do the breaker, but I'm trying to find out of it's OK to turn the old oven box into a couple more outlets, or if it would be better to just tile over the thing with the backsplash.

I don't know what SE cable means, but there are thick red, white, black and bare cables sticking out of the box right now.
 
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Old 03-27-11, 12:46 PM
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If you have red, black, white insulated and one bare wires then you don't have type SE cable.

Does this old oven wiring have its own circuit breaker separate from the range circuit? Sometimes they were combined. If separate you can permanently abandon the circuit by having the wires removed from the circuit breaker panel and removing the box from the kitchen and pushing the cable into the wall cavity and repairing the wall. DO NOT just push the cable into the wall without first having it removed (not just disconnected) from the circuit breaker panel.

If it doesn't look too ugly you can cut the bare ends off of the insulated wires, screw on appropriately-sized wire nuts and carefully fold the sires back into the box and apply a blank plate while turning off the associated circuit break AND posting a note in the panel stating the circuit is not being used. If you do this last you may NOT remove the metal or plastic box and you may NOT permanently cover the box but must leave it accessible without removing any fixed surfaces.
 
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Old 03-27-11, 05:55 PM
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Are the wires copper or aluminum? What size are they?
 
 

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