How can I provide an electrical outlet at my portable kitchen island?

Question

I want to use appliances on my kitchen island but don't want it to be built in. If I hang a pendant light and install a lamp holder outlet adapter into a light bulb socket. Is this dangerous or a violation of code? I would wire the lighting like I would for electrical outlets in the kitchen and provide a GFCI upstream. I don't see anything in the code about hanging outlets in the kitchen.

Answer 1

There are pendants and there are pendants. An item like this Power Pendant Outlet Drop is designed for the purpose you describe. An ordinary residential grade hanging light is NOT. There are a few possible issues:

• An ordinary hanging light fixture is designed to carry the weight of the fixture. It is not designed to handle frequent manipulation and the stress of daily plugging/unplugging of appliances.

• An ordinary light fixture (hanging or a table lamp or whatever) will often have smaller size wire than needed for a full 15A or 20A circuit because the requirements (and associated UL testing/rating) are based on the fixture having a maximum continuous usage far lower than 15A or 20A. For example, a 6-bulb chandelier might be rated for 6 x 60W = 360W == 3A continuous usage. Therefore, it can have 18 AWG wires from the bulbs on up to the ceiling box. You do NOT want to run your toaster oven on 18 AWG wires.

• Grounding - I do not know if ANY edison-base to receptacle adapters are available with proper 3-wire grounded receptacles. I know the ones I Google'd now (UL listed, name brand) are NOT grounded, and I suspect that by design it is not possible to have such an adapter properly grounded.

• GFCI - If the lighting circuit is on a GFCI breaker (or downstream "Load" of a GFCI receptacle) then you are protected (and this helps mitigate the grounding concern). But if that is not the case then you would need to retrofit a GFCI breaker. If you can't do that (e.g., old fuse box or double-stuff breakers) then you are going against modern code for kitchen receptacles.

In short: This is not a good idea unless you are prepared to install a "real" pendant power source.

As far as the alternative of a floor outlet - that can easily solve most of these issues. However, a floor outlet will be too far away for modern kitchen appliances that typically have (based on modern kitchen electrical code) ~ 2 - 3 ft. cords. A hanging pendant (of the right type) does not have that problem.

Answer 2

Yes, it's a terrible idea. People really don't get that their kitchen appliances are the heaviest draw plug-in loads in the home. Yes, really, that silly little $18 hot plate draws a full 1500 watts (12.5 amps). Don't "nahhh" me, it's true. Go look.

And when you're done, check out that $12 hair dryer and $15 heater-fan.

So putting any kitchen appliance on an improvised power source is sheer madness.

However, pendant lamps are a name that is derived from another thing: the pendant. That is a power drop from the ceiling. It uses

• a heavy flexible cord that is pendant-rated, talk with your local electrical supply house about these.
• quality, typically metal-net strain relief on both ends of the cord.
• a durable junction box in both ceiling and pendant, typically aluminum or steel

I don't buy prefabricated pendants, I knock them together out of the above parts, as needed to suit.

Code requires you provide GFCI protection to the pendant since it serves kitchen countertops. Because the cord itself is vulnerable to damage, I suggest having the GFCI device upstream of the pendant, e.g. GFCI breaker.

You note from the above that one circuit can't even support two of these large kitchen-appliance loads. So there's a lot of sense to putting 2 circuits out at the island. If you do that, I advise either having 2 pendants, or seeking /5 cordage (2 hots 2 neutrals 1 ground). In cordage, the ground counts as a wire. The trouble with running /4 MWBC and using a 2-pole GFCI breaker is then you can't do AFCI, and a pendant cord is a really good use-case for AFCI.

Answer 3

The only problem I can see is that the wiring internal to a pendant lamp is probably not rated for the 20A that is typically needed for kitchen outlets.

Another option might be a flush mounted floor outlet:

Answer 4

While it might be unsightly, I would see if you can install some surface-mount conduit. It's not pretty, but it would let you feed wires safely overhead to your island. You simply wire it into an existing outlet along the wall.

To get the power down from the ceiling, you install a commonly available extension cord reel.

Installed properly, you can always remove the conduit should you tire of this

Answer 5

I've also considered the issue with having power available at a portable kitchen island and you could do what I did in the garage and hang an electrical reel on the ceiling. Link

Yeah, by itself it's ugly in a kitchen but it should be possible to enclose it within a box of some sort so that only the plug is visible. Pulls down when you need it, retracts when not needed and doesn't require major renovations while you see if it is a workable solution.

And if you have an attic above the kitchen you could have an outlet box installed in the attic to plug the reel into so that the reel is not visible nor taking up headroom in the kitchen. Not an ideal setup but workable.

Please check the rating of the extension reel and make sure that it will handle the load of whatever the item is that your using (blender ?). Also, while outlet boxes in a kitchen are required to be on a GFCI, usually lighting circuits are not. So make sure that either the line is protected by a GFCI or connect a portable one in line with the reel.

** Edited **

I'm not an electrician but it looks like running a cord through the ceiling is not allowed.

From the 2017 NEC: 400.12 Uses Not Permitted.

Unless specifically permitted in 400.10, flexible cables, flexible cord sets, and power supply cords shall not be used for the following:

(1) As a substitute for the fixed wiring of a structure

(2) Where run through holes in walls, structural ceilings, suspended ceilings, dropped ceilings, or floors ...