Tips to Keep in Mind When Planning to Wire a Tiny Home

15 August 2016
 Categories: , Blog


If you are designing a tiny home, you have to decide how you are going to wire it. Creating a tidy, safe system that keeps the lights on, the water pump running and your laptop charged is an important job. Here are some tips and ideas to keep in mind throughout the process:

1. Hire a professional to do the wiring.

Unless you are an experienced electrician, you should not try to wire your tiny home on your own. Even if you are doing every other step yourself, hand this step over to the pros. Faulty wiring can cause fires, and with a tiny home, the whole thing could burn down quickly. Protect it by working with a professional.

2. Develop a wiring scheme.

Although you are working with a professional, you can still come up with ideas for where you want the wiring to go. To that end, think about where you most want appliances, ceiling fans, lights and outlets. Then, give the electrician your ideas. He or she can help refine your objectives and show you where you may need to add additional wires, install extra circuits or modify your design.

3. Be creative about where you put the wires and outlets.

If you've built a home out of traditional gypsum panels and studs, you can put the wires in the walls, just as you would in any other home. However, if you are making a tiny home out of a shipping container or a similar type of container and you decide not to add panels to the walls, there won't be a space to put the wires.

In that cases, consider putting in a fake floor, placing the wiring beneath it and powering your home from outlets in the floor. The only downside of this is that if you add a loft to your shipping container home, you may have to run an extension cord from the floor to your loft to have power up there.  

4. Set up the wiring like a caravan.

Unless you are wiring your tiny home to electrical mains, you will need to have your electrician wire it like a caravan. This means that your home will have a panel on the outside. This panel needs to be able to accept a cord which you can then hook up to a power station at a campground, a solar panel or a generator. Make sure that you closely determine the wattage you need and have the electrician set up the home accordingly.


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