"could furring strips be added and covered by new drywall to create some wall depth?"

I actually had to do this in a bedroom in my house where they built the interior walls with the 2x4 on their side, and 2" is NOT enough room for a standard box. In hindsight, I should have built the wall out with 2x2 or 2x4, but I was in a pinch and built it out by adding 2 more furring strips on top of the 1 already there making my final thickness 4 1/4 giving me plenty of room. I probably could have gone with only 2 total, but i went with 3 just to be safe.

Perel, In a perfect world you should frame it in with 2x4. If not, then add 1 or 2 more furring strips.

Funny, I had the same issue, in trying to maximize my basement space, I used 2x4s on their side, I got so frustrated with the electric box issues, I just ripped them back out, and installed a conventional wall. And in the end, you do not notice the lost space anyways, and I have a better wall in the end.

Either reframing the wall or adding more furring strips would require tearing down all the plaster and putting up new drywall. That's not happening. To clarify - this isn't one wall in particular, this is how the *entire house* is constructed. ALL exterior walls are, exterior to interior, face brick, concrete block, furring strip, gypsum lath, plaster, more plaster, paint.

BTW - finally found one! Turns out Raco makes a gangable 1.5" deep metal single device box. However, the only way to meet box fill requirements is to have additional gangs unused (blank faceplate) just to get enough cubic inches, so it looks like I'll be better off relocating these devices to an interior wall.

The Carlon B117RSW is *genius*. It's the only way I *can* meet the box fill requirements for the required receptacles in these exterior walls..

Here is a link that might be useful: RACO 400 box

I have always been a fan of carlon stuff. They make an adjustable box that has a screw in it to adjust the depth of the box. AWESOME! Pricey, but great.

Nothing in any code prohibits boxes from protruding from the wall. To cover an extra 1/4" of depth, a jumbo wall plate can be cut to fit around the box to cover that much space and then a regular plate is used to complete the "sandwich". The box also could be recessed into the concrete block, as I suggested in my first post.

Here is a link that might be useful: P&S

Followup. It turns out that this is REALLY common.. the solution is a 2-gang box and a single-gang mud ring. Once I found that out installation was easy.

Could you clarify your solution please, I'm not following.

Use a 1.25 inch deep 4 and 11/16 square box with a plaster ring.

There is also nothing stopping you from cutting into the concrete block top get clearance for the boxes.

I'm not following how a single gang mud ring is helping him get a 2 gang opening.

Let me clarify what I am curious about. Perel needs to find a way to get a 2 gang opening in a shallow box with enough room so he doesn't go over the box fill. The solution that he found was to use a 2 gang box and single gang mud ring. I'm not following how that works...

Ah. I see the confusion; my bad. The Carlon single-gang old work boxes ended up being too deep too, so I just made these boxes single gang instead of double. That's where the 2-gang box / 1-gang mud ring came from.

I suppose if that location had ended up needing 2 gangs on the wall, I could have just used a larger box underneath and a 2-gang mud ring.. same principle. Still, in the end I decided that was more trouble than it was worth.

Easy solution. Take 2 of the Carlon shallow depth old-work boxes. One will be your "right" and one will be your "left." Where the 2 boxes will meet, drill out 1" holes. The conductors from one side will be fed through the hole. When you install the duplex outlets, use the adjusting slot to move them toward the middle so your cover plate will fit properly.

"I'm not following how a single gang mud ring is helping him get a 2 gang opening."

The use a 2 gang mud ring.

You may have to go to an electrical wholesaler.

Brick, you got caught up in the "dig up an ancient thread" syndrome. Askgary replied to this thread as if it were posted yesterday.

Askgary, no matter how hard you try that will not work. You'll never get the two devices close enough to use a two gang plate. Besides, the way you describe is quite non-code-compliant. You'd have to do more to make it complaint, and even then it would still be nearly impossible to get a plate to fit and would still be hackery.