Membrane Penetrations- how to avoid firestopping them Part 3

This week it seems like we are talking about how to avoid firestop rather than how to firestop things, so let’s keep this theme going with another story.  

I was doing special inspection of firestop on a project. Before the walls got closed up I had noted that there were electrical boxes on opposite sides of the wall and within 24 horizontal inches of one another, which would easily make you think that they would both require putty pads because they triggered that clause in the code.  

When I asked the electrician if they managed to get putty pads on them, he started blaming the drywall contractor for closing up the wall too fast and the drywaller was blaming the electrician for slowing production and things started to get heated fast.  

I jumped in the middle and go them to take a deep breath. I asked the drywaller one question, he said YES and  the next thing you know the electrician was thanking the drywaller, the wall didn’t need to get opened back up and the electrician didn’t need to putty putt pads or any other protection on the boxes to be code compliant.  

Does anyone know what question I asked the drywaller? What one thing would eliminate the need for putty pads on the fire rated walls? Pop it in the comments (or just say follow if you want to know the answer)