light box question

[ally68]

I have several houses in this area that have no fixture boxes for cieling lights looks like they attached a 2 x 4 or something between the joists and drilled a hole thru it and the drywall and mounted fans and lights to this otherwise the houses are wired great is this a really bad deal or should I just inform them when they change the fixtures to fix them. Going to be really expensive to redo them. Is the box thing a new code? they are mounted really sturdy since they are mounted to the board between the joists.

Thanks

[John Nelson]

For most fixtures, it's a really bad idea. But some fixtures, such as most fluorescents, have a wiring compartment internal to the fixture so that no box is needed in the ceiling.

So, bottom line, it depends.

The "box thing" is not new, and the remedy is trivial and dirt cheap (a dollar in parts).

[ally68]

well I will have to pull the boards in between the studs or try and cut them in place to put boxes in just seems like this is a common practice in this area.
What is the risk wires getting to hot and over time detererorating?

I am not and electrician by the way just trying to help out a freind.

[John Nelson]

Whether or not you have to remove the blocking depends on the clearances you have to work with. Since you can see it, you can probably answer that question better than I can. Perhaps you can just nail the new box to the side of that blocking (probably not the best idea). Or maybe you can install a pancake box on the bottom of it. Or maybe you can just move it up a few inches to get room for a standard fan box on the bottom of it (which is probably the best idea).

[Cheyenps]

The fix is pretty easy.

If the blocking is laying flat on the ceiling, just cut a fan-rated pancake box in to the drywall/plaster.

If the blocking is on edge, cut in one of the new (last few years) plastic fan-rated "saddle boxes" that wrap around a joist. Very slick, and a lot of inspectors don't like the pancake boxes.