A bit of wiring

With the interior walls framed, it was time to get started on the electrical wiring in the house. I’ve done some wiring at different times in a few different houses over the years, although I’ve not wired a whole house. Still, like most things, it’s not that complicated if you understand the concept.

A few weeks ago, I made a wiring diagram which shows the location of outlets, switches, and light fixtures. One of the considerations is how to route the wires. In many places, they have to go through or around the timber frame. In other places, like for many light fixtures, there is no space within the ceiling to run the wires. I haven’t tackled the light fixtures yet, but I have a plan for concealing those wires by running them along a floor joist and covering them with some wood trim.

The starting point for wiring was to install electrical boxes. Armed with my wiring diagram, I mounted boxes in their locations within the interior walls – this was easy since these are conventionally framed walls. The straw bale walls, on the other hand, require a different method.

I cut a 2x2 into 9 inch long lengths and tapered one end to a point. After attaching a standard electrical box to the 2x2 stake I made using a couple of drywall screws, I was able to drive it into the wall. I thought I would need to notch out a space for the box to recess it into the wall a little, but it works out that it’s not necessary – it can be driven into the wall far enough without a notch carved into the straw.

In order to run wires between the outlet boxes in the straw bale walls, I use a 1x1 to push the wire 4 to 6 inches into the wall. Between outlets, the wires are running between the first and second courses of bales. For switches, I am still able to push the wires into the straw bales even though they aren’t necessarily between courses.

Once I have the wire ends into the electrical boxes (I leave plenty of wire to work with when putting in switches and outlets later – I’ve worked on homes where the electrician left hardly any wire in the box, and it wasn’t fun), I push the box into the wall leaving about an inch exposed past the surface of the bales so that the outlets and switches should end up flush with the wall surface when the plastering is completed.

I was able to get a fair bit of the wiring completed last week. I wasn’t installing the outlets and switches yet, just putting in boxes and running wires. I have a few more wires to put in the walls. I was also running wires back to the location for the circuit breaker box for the different circuits we’ll have in the house.

Since our electrical system will be solar powered, not grid-tied, I’m not overly concerned with code stipulations about location and number of outlets (although, in most areas, we’re meeting or exceeding code). The wiring will be safe and functional. The wires are properly sized for the loads on each circuit. Actually, with our current system, we are only running an 1,100 watt inverter which is about 10 amps of power (it can surge to about 20 amps). So, other than the convenience of having different sections of the house on different circuits and possibly upgrading at some later date, there is actually little reason for multiple circuits.