That inspector who laughed at my outlet spacing, still bugs me a year later

Guy at the county office in Knoxville told me my 18 inch spacing on a kitchen backsplash was a hack job and then showed me his own house had 22 inch gaps, so is there actually a real standard or are we all just making this up as we go?

2 comments

2 Comments

wells.evan1d agoTop Commenter

My cousin's kitchen in Chattanooga has outlets so far apart you'd think they were placed by someone who hates appliances, like a full 30 inches between some of them. He built that house himself and bragged about passing inspection first try, which tells me inspectors in different counties might as well be enforcing completely different laws. Every time I plug in a toaster over there I have to run an extension cord across the counter, which is honestly more dangerous than whatever spacing rule we're supposed to be following. Maybe your guy was just having a bad day and wanted someone else to feel small, because nobody can agree on this stuff even where I live over in Nashville. I'd probably get laughed at for different reasons on my own backsplash, so I just stopped caring about what the county people think.

nancyramirez1d ago

Wait, is 30 inches even a real thing down there? In my neck of the woods up here in Ohio we get grief for anything over like 12 inches on a countertop, and I once had an inspector measure with a tape from the sink edge just to be a jerk. Sounds like your cousin lucked out with whoever showed up that day, and honestly I'd take his setup over the three outlets crammed into one corner I dealt with last remodel.