Electrics in Log Cabins? Your electrician is going to love to hear you need your log cabin wired. Its such an easy, clean, quick job compared to a block built house.
What electrics will I need in my log cabin?
There are no restrictions to what you can put into your log cabin. From an electrical point of view, a log cabin is just like any other building. Sauna anyone? Hot tub? Electrical underfloor heating? We’ve done them all.
But realistically, in the average log cabin, the range of electrical items includes all of the obvious ones:
- Freezer
- Refrigerator
- Water cooler
- Cooking
- Cooker
- Double Oven
- Microwave oven
- Washing machine
- Clothes dryer
- Dishwasher
- Water heater
- Panel heaters
- Storage Heaters
- Electric Shower
- Power Shower
- Immersion Heater
- Extractor Fan
- Fan Heater
Water Heating in a Log Cabin
When considering water heating, you have two main demands:
- Water for a Shower/bath
- Water for Bathroom and Kitchen Sink
Water heating for showers, baths and sinks is a simple, very straightforward task for your log cabin. Thera re two basic options, particularly when we are dealing with a smaller cabin, and the shower is the deciding factor. You need to decide whether you are going to go for an electric shower, or an immersion heater and gravity fed shower (with a pump included, as an option.)
ELECTRIC SHOWER & UNDER SINK WATER HEATER
Installing an electrical heater into a log cabin is a very straightforward business from the plumbing point of view. It only gets complicated when it comes to where your electricity is coming from. If you are taking a power feed from an exiting house/meter/electrical board, and there is already an electric shower in the main house, then things get a little complicated. The problem is that electric showers use a lot of power. Usually, there is not enough power for two electric showers going into the one house. (Normally, you will only ever find one electric shower in any house – ask around – you’ll see!)
If you want an electric shower in the cabin and there is already one in the main house, you will have to get an isolater switch installed. This is straightforward, and it just insures that the two showers cannot be turned on at the same time.
Once you have your electrical shower installed, all you need is an under-sink instantaneous water heater to heat tap water for the kitchen and bathroom sinks.
IMMERSION HEATER
An immersion heater is also an option, and can be a requirement if you are putting in radiators. It is again a simple operation to install an immersion heater. You can get very reliable water heaters on eBay for a very reasonable cost.
Log Cabin Lighting
Because of the shape of the ceilings in our log cabins, recessed lights seem to work very well, and are used by a lot of our customers. They are very reasonably priced, coming in at about €9 per light, and they are extremely economical to run. Using te latest LED technology, these lights do not get hot, and use very little electricity. Unfortunately, they cannot be dimmed, so you will need some other lamps around your rooms for atmospheric lighting. The photo above is of the living room in the Log Cabin Showhouse in Boyle, Co. Roscommon. Feel free to come and visit. Just call 086 817 0429 to make an appointment.
Cost of Log Cabin Electrics
Depending on the amount of wiring/lights/plugs/appliances/heaters you want installed in your log cabin, the cost of the wiring is going to vary, of course. But I can tell you that it cost me €1900 to fully wire the two bedroom log cabin show-house in Boyle, and that included:
- 11 double sockets
- Connections for Cooker, Immersion and Washing Machine
- 16 recessed ceiling lights
- One outside socket
- Set of outside lights with sensor
- One panel wall heater
- One Extractor fan connection
- One strip light for kitchen area
Visit our log cabin showrooms.
You can get details of all of our log cabin showrooms here: https://timberliving.ie/showrooms
Why not come for a visit? O phone 0591 81039 if you have any questions. You’ll also get lots of information on our Log Cabin blog page.
