I imagine that a certain amount of frustration is to be expected anytime you take on a large construction project. With that in mind, aside from a few hiccups along the way, we consider ourselves relatively lucky that most things have gone smoothly thus far. That is, if we don’t consider the wiring issue.
We were initially referred to a local company, McCray Electric, when we first began to put our plans for building in motion and scheduled an appointment to meet with them back in September. Completely clueless as to how to go about lighting our cabin or where we would need to place all of the outlets, we took our cabin plans in and met with them to discuss various options and ideas, feeling very confident when we left our meeting that they would do a fantastic job. They said they had wired other log cabins in the past and seemed well aware of how to best go about the job, bringing up things we’d never even thought of. After discussing the project in length, we were told that they would go over the plans a bit more thoroughly in the coming week and then get back to us with a price quote and give us a complete plan for wiring our new cabin. Several weeks went by and several phone calls were made, each time we were told they would get back to us with a quote, “tomorrow”. It’s now February and we’re still waiting for them to call “tomorrow” with their price quote!
In the meantime, construction began and we needed an electrician to go ahead and start wiring as the logs were being laid. At Mr. Lipham’s recommendation, we agreed for him to bring up his electrician from Alabama to do the job. We absolutely loved Andy (who turned out to be Mr. Lipham’s son for those of you who haven’t been following all along) and found him to be much fun to have on the site. Clearly he was knowledgable not only as far as the wiring, but in all areas of building a log home. The problem was, after wiring half the cabin, he had to return home to Alabama and the rest of the wiring was left to another member of Mr. Lipham’s crew who had been helping Andy wire the basement and first floor. We soon began to suspect that the only training Raymond had in running wire was the two days he worked with Andy before he had gone back home to Alabama. The idea was that Andy was going to return to finish up what Raymond couldn’t do at the same time Mr. Lipham returned to finish up the few construction projects that were left undone when the building crew had left. Unfortunately, circumstances did not allow for them to return when they had initially planned and, as we needed to move forward with construction, we eventually had to make other arrangements to get the work completed.
Having little luck in finding an electrician that would come in to finish what Andy had left undone, fix the mess that Raymond had made, as well as to sort through the quagmire of unmarked wires that were running haphazardly throughout the three floors, Dave finally decided he’d take on the project himself. Having a father who is an electrician, as well as having previously wired a house that he had renovated in Richmond’s historic Church Hill, he was no stranger to the task. He’d just been trying to avoid it. He has now spent the last three weeks sorting out the mess of unmarked wires, starting by first by going wire by wire, attaching a 9volt battery on one end and a current detector on the other, painstakingly going through the entire cabin trying to figure out what runs where and labeling each with a sharpy as he goes along. He has also confirmed what we had feared- that everything Raymond had run on the second floor, as well as much of the main floor, has to be redone.
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- drilling into the breakfast room wall
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- rewiring the outside light and porch fan off the breakfast room
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- running the new wire along the top of the door frame
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- as Dave’s trusty apprentice, my job is to cover the wire with metal plates
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- with a 1×4 as a guide, Dave uses a router to cut a path into the log wall in order to run wire for the microwave
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- wire now pinned in place… this will eventually be covered by the kitchen cabinets and back splash
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- drilling a new hole to run more wire between the master bedroom and great room wall
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- now that’s a drill bit!
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- Dave runs the new wire up to the switch box
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- Dave drills into the log wall outside the master bedroom to make room for an electrical box
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- once the hole is large enough, he pulls the wires into the electrical box
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- attaching the box to the wall
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- rewiring the fan and porch light
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- testing the wire for the fan outside the master bedroom
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- drilling into the master bedroom doorframe to run the wires from the outside
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- drilling into the wall to bring another wire into the switch box
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- Dave uses the chainsaw to cut a space into the door frame for the new wire
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- after drilling the holes and cutting the groove into the door frame, Dave pulls the wire from the outside, runs it down the frame and into the wall to the switch box
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- last step is to cover the wire with metal plates
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- onto the electic panel in the basement- notice the giant mess of wires coming out of the basement ceiling and into the panel
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- Dave gives me a lesson on how to run wire into the electric panel
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- official apprentice, I even have my own tool belt 🙂
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- several hours later I’ve untwisted all the wires coming into the panel, rewiring them as needed, and have neatly pinned them to the wall…that mess had been driving us both crazy!
While we’ve been working on the wiring, Todd Hawkes and crew have started putting the stone on the chimney….AWESOME!
Gentry Well Works have been back as well…
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- the well has been covered
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- they have run a pipe from the well, up the side of the driveway and into the basement of the cabin
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- we now have water inside the house!
the coleman cabin 
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