20 September 2008

Cool power source for a kitchen counter


This is a pop-up power strip for use on kitchen counters from Doug Mockett and Company out of Torrance, CA. Mockett and company have a host of variations on this theme available on their website and they are a pretty great solution to the problem of not enough power along a kitchen counter.

However, there are a couple of things to consider before taking buying one of these for use in a kitchen.

For starters, they are a power strip and they need to plug into something. If you don't have an outlet inside of the base cabinet below the area where you place this pop-up you need to get one installed, Festoon Lighting Sydney that specialize in lighting installation and hires estimate that it will cost between $150 to $300.

Secondly, even though they feature a water proof gasket and a UL listing, they are non-GFI outlets and are therefore not up to code for use in a kitchen. Insisting that all kitchen outlets near a water source be GFI is overkill if you ask me. However, my opinion of the building code doesn't make the building code go away. You cannot pass an electrical inspection with one of these babies installed. For that reason, you can only use them as retrofits.

So even with all of that said, I still think they're pretty cool.

4 comments:

  1. What, you're advocating that people actually uninstall what they put in for the building inspector after he goes away, and *then* put in what they really want, and that makes the most real sense?

    Oh, horrors, I don't know if I can associate with you any more, you scofflaw, you!

    [VBG]

    Me want one of these. In my office. In my studio. Everywhere in my house. Me will have, eventually. Doug Mockett rules.

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  2. Doug Mockett does indeed rule and if it takes some acts of civil disobedience to get these things accepted by a code that's not smart enough to see the genius of these things, then so be it. I'm shaking my fist at the sky.

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  3. I have used this on several jobs! I love it for islands and so do my clients!

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  4. Wouldn't it pass code if it was on a GFCI breaker, or wired on the load terminals of a nearby GFCI outlet and protected that way?

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