I am, at heart, a lazy bastard. Much of the work I do is to save me from the kind of back-and-forth drudgery I hate and am not really built to excel at, and that’s the kind of work I like to crow about. But I can also let my nature draw me into foolish decisions.
Like the one I just about had myself talked into, when the Jeep’s battery went flat night before last.
The Secret Lair had one outside quad electrical outlet that was never quite right. It worked fine before I sided the cabin two years ago, but after that I couldn’t put the weather caps back on and I was reduced to expedients to keep the weather from ruining the cabin’s wiring. These tended to involve duct tape.
With the removal of the old west wall, I also tore out that outlet and in the fullness of time it will become an outlet in the new bedroom. But its removal from the great outdoors raised the question: Do I even want an outdoor outlet on the cabin? I was talking myself into “no,” because that’s a lot easier to do. A hole in the wall that isn’t there is perfectly stormproof, right? I’d have to string a butt-ton of expensive wire, drill holes, cut a scary precise hole in my nice new wall…yeah, maybe “no” was the right answer.
And then the Jeep battery went dead. The Battery Minder works on 120 AC, of course, and there was the question of where the extension cord was going to come from…
So…yeah. I’ll have to do that before I paint the wall.
Oh yes, you want an outdoor outlet, although I suppose it could just as easily be on your power shed.
Also, a porch light for the new door, which will also be handy for checking out any nighttime chicken commotion .
Also, wiring is so much easier BEFORE you close the walls, so think ahead, and think about 120 VAC as well as 12 VDC. Your furnace should also have power available, and you will want a low voltage thermostat cable so that your thermostat can be reached without getting out of bed. Perhaps you want bedside outlets for a reading light and USB charger? Bedside light switches?
You might also install 2 or 3 cheap empty electrical boxes with conduit extending down under the Lair. That leaves you many options. Seal well!
Obviously i have no idea on the geographic layout of the lair, but my suggestion was going to be the power shed as well. shorter run of wire, and no holes in the fancy new walls
The powershed would be a very simple place to put an outside outlet, and I keep meaning to – but I never get around to it because there’s never any call for power tools there. The new outlet needs to go on the bedroom wall because that’s where extension cords always get used.
Also, Ben, you’re quite right about external lights for the back door. I even have a couple of exterior 12V LEDs that have wanted a home. That’s where they’re going.
Why don’t you, instead of running it out the side of the wall, put it at the bottom of the wall where it is under the side of the building? It would be out of the way of the weather, though you would still probably want to have some cover over it to keep wasps (if you have them) or other bugs out.
You could even put some excess lights down there to make crawling under your house easier.
Maybe.
Andrew beat me to it – a length of outdoor-rated cable with a molded plug on the end that’s under the cabin but reachable from the perimeter would provide a connection point.
Or, a flip-front waterproof outdoor box that’s surface mounted on the exterior. That would still entail a hole for wiring and a couple for mounting screws, but small enough that they could be easily caulked, and caulking around the top and sides of the box would seal that, although it would probably require re-caulking every few years.
Joel, I have some outdoor rated ROMEX left over from another project if you want but can also scare up an outdoor rated electrical box. You would drill a 5/8″ hole in the exterior sheathing where you want to mount the box (it will come with a 2″ stubby pipe screwed into the center of rear, run a fat bead of silicone sealant around the pipe onto the back of the box, shove it into that hole and screw it to the sheathing, insert cable, insert GFI dual outlet and you are done externally. On the inside you just use normal ROMEX to the nearest 110V source. Piece of cake with frosting! Of course this is easiest before you put up wall board inside that room.
Let me know ASAP so I can scrounge up the parts. In fact, list any electrical stuff you need, I have 2 houses worth of maintenance and additions in spare parts around here.
I’ve been thinking about that all afternoon – of course if I can get an outdoor rated box, the job becomes much more secure and simple. I’d take you up on that offer, Ed, but it would simply take too long. Even if you stuffed it in a box tomorrow it would take three weeks or a month to get out here to me. And I need to be done with the electrical and well into the flooring before then. A friend is coming to help me with the drywall in September, and I need to be ready.
But thanks for the description, because if the local hardware doesn’t have such a box I’m going to get them to order me one. That’s just the way I’m going to do it.
This isn’t a problem that you will have with an external outlet, but I found it “interesting” anyway.
I was looking at houses with my daughter when she wanted to move closer to her university.
We found one place where the neighbours had run an extension from the external outlet, over the dividing fence, and across their yard.
They were running everything electrical that they could on a single 240V/10A cable from the vacant house next door.