Light Switch On Wall With Pocket Door

We just build the wall a little thicker so that there s room for electrical wiring switches and outlets.

Light switch on wall with pocket door.

If you are in an existing situation forget it. More about putting a light switch in a wall with a pocket door here. More about the placement of light and fan switches in one particular bathroom here. In most cases i ve worked out the wiring switch plug locations away from the pocket frame areas.

The building inspector said he saw no problem with me installing a light switch in a shallow electrical box on the pocket door frame as long as i could properly secure the wire per code within 8 of the box. However in two cases the ideal location is in the wall area of the pocket. Many people falsely believe that you cannot have any wiring electrical outlets or electrical switches in the pocket wall but we have a nifty trick. Pocket doors could make it difficult to put a light switch exactly where you want it.

You can either use a standard pocket and drywall it in or go with a barn style sliding door and surface mount the hardware to the exterior of the wall and the door stays exposed on the wall. You can t cut them to run conduit down from the ceiling. Mount the pocket door to the surface of the existing wall then the plumbing won t be an issue. The 1x4 on the door frame are running horizontal.

I recently installed 2 pocket door kits together from one room to an adjacent in my house. Sometimes it makes more sense to place a light switche outside the door rather than inside. Not going to work. This would be near impossible even in new construction and meet code.

I installed a motion sensor light switch in my home office due to pocket doors causing the original switch to be at the end of the wall. One downside to the pocket door is that it often leaves little room for anything else in the wall such as plumbing or electrical such as outlets or switches so careful planning is required. If you were standing in the bathroom in front of the door you could turn the switch on with your left hand and slide the pocket door open or closed with your right. Go to the nearest wall without a pocket door and place switches as close as possible.

Put a small night light in a plug close by to help with the extra couple of steps to get to the switches when the room is dark. The bathroom pictured above comes from. We have a pocket door between the bathroom and the master bedroom.