Wiring Before the Walls
It feels a little odd crafting an EM blog post while currently residing at Deer Park Monastery, but I’m gonna give it a go.
When last I chatted with Mike, he said: I’m glad you’re not here right now. The cabin is a mess. I have everything torn up. I knew what he meant. Disarray in my home space is difficult for me. I’m the type of person for whom it’s a good idea to put in intentional effort not to go too overboard with orderliness and neatness. I’m a firm believer that such a thing exists as being too particular about things. And I can be too particular about the state of the physical space around me. But I feel a little bad for not being there to support what he’s working on.
Turns out, before we install walls, we kinda forgot about the whole necessity of needing to install wiring. Our system is so simple right now that it just sort of slipped our minds. Right now we’ve been operating on one outlet with 4 plug in spots that’s tied into our inverter/controller machine, which is what connects our PV panels to our batteries for storage and our electricity use. We have a power bar plugged into one of the 4 spots, to increase the amount of spaces we can plug stuff in to, but our electricity needs are pretty minimal, so the simple set up we’ve been operating on thus far has been working just fine. Still, once we have walls and all, we’ll work on building a kitchen and get a little more set up, so having outlets around the cabin, and possibly a wired in light or two will come in handy. So Mike is working on wiring the cabin while I’m away. We’ll see if we get to the install of the walls and flooring this year. It may be that the wiring is the thing we get completed before we head south for the winter months, and the walls & flooring will have to wait until next spring.
One of my anthems is: Everything takes time. It helps me to keep in mind that things happen one step at a time. And when I can focus on taking one step at time, I don’t get overwhelmed with the amount of work there is to do. I feel like this big life change move we made 3-years ago when we sold our house in Missoula has given me advanced level training in learning how to grow in skill with going with the flow. One thing at a time, I tell myself. That’s all anyone can do.
Mike plans on wiring in 9 outlets and 2 lights. When Mike told me he was putting in 9 outlets, I thought he was kidding. He wasn’t kidding. It seems like a lot for a 12X14 cabin. But I trust his judgment and support his vision. And I also reckon that when all is said and done, I’ll be all like: Thank goodness there’s an outlet here…and one here...and another one here!
Mike's wiring diagram