It's been a while since we last posted, but we promise we are working! Admittedly, it has been a little slow going lately. The plumbing is proving slightly more difficult than anticipated, but nothing we can't handle! It just means Drew does more pensive wall staring than normal.
On this blog post we are to address the exterior electrical boxes. After some back and forth we landed on installing 4 exterior electrical boxes. The first box is for a coax cable. This will allow us to install an antenna or a satellite dish near the roof with the coax cable running inside the walls (rather than the outside of the house) to our living room. The other three are for outlets. One on the back of the house for plugging in tools or a heater for the propane tank and water lines, and the other two are for outside lights. One near the roof for hanging patio lights and the other closer to the bottom of the trailer for any ground lights.
Installing the electrical boxes was pretty standard. First, you'll need a hole to install it in.
- Cut a square out of the Tyvek wrap.
- Trace the pattern they provided with the box on the OSB.
- Drill a hole in one or more of the corners of the square so you can get the jigsaw blade started.
- Use the jigsaw to make the hole.
Once the hole is cut you place the electrical box in it (we went with the Arlington DBHM1C box) and secure it with screws.
Once you have it secured, you finish it up just like you would a window.
Next up are the vent's for the bathroom exhaust fan and the range hood. As Abbie will tell you, Drew's favorite thing is cutting holes in poor Rosey Leigh. She suggested changing the name to the Swiss cheese house. Both of these vents are 4 inches in diameter, so we used a 4 1/8 inch hole saw to give us just little bit of "play". The little bit of play is nice because we have to go through the rim joist and the exterior OSB sheathing, and they are 3 1/2 inches apart. This makes lining up the holes challenging, but definitely doable.
Once both the holes were cut we placed the 4 inch duct through, to make sure they lined up with each other, and they did perfectly!
Above is a peek from the inside to the outside with the duct removed, but the louver vent in place.
And here is a close up of what it looks like on the outside with the louver vent on. The blue thing behind the vent is called Quick Flash and they come in all different sizes. We decided to use the Quick Flash because it makes it easier to set the louvers flush with the siding once it is installed. The Quick Flash product allows us to move the ducting back after the siding is installed, but still have an airtight seal.
If you look closely you can see both the bathroom exhaust fan and range hood louvers installed.
Above is a close up of the Quick Flashing all finished up and without the louver vent on.
We also redid the composting toilet vent with Quick Flashing. This will allow us to make adjustments in the future and it should make installing the siding easier.
Last, but not least, we placed the mounting block for the front door external light (we went with the Arlington 8082F for the mounting block). Once the placement was decided (centered over the door as low as we could go and avoid the door header), we needed to drill a hole to pass the electrical wiring through.
Like with all the other electrical boxes, it was screwed in place and finished up with the Tite Seal Tape. Below you can see what it looks like with the mounting block in place. We haven't picked the light out just yet, but I think it will look great on that block!
With the vents and exterior electrical boxes finished, it is time for siding! We have a long weekend planned with some special guests to, hopefully, finish the siding all at once.
P.S. To be fully ready for siding we also needed to get the exterior water lines run through the sheathing, which we did, but we'll talk about in more detail in an upcoming plumbing post.
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