Preparing for power

Before putting the floor on, we had to prepare for power by digging a trench for our steel conduit.

One important note for those of you who are planning on building a shed. If we hadn't needed electrical, our county would not have required a building permit for this building. It was only because we were adding power that one was needed. 

Check with your county's building code to determine whether you will need a building permit for yours. Ours was a very simple process, so it turned out to be no problem.

We are running our electrical off of the house's main panel. The shed will have a 50-amp panel to provide ample power to run all of my office equipment, an electric fireplace for heat and a Friedrich wall air conditioner.

Painted a line to mark where to cut trench (no significance to color, we used up one can and started another)

Before Brad started on the trench, he used the Ditch Witch to do a little brush removal.

After brush removal

Trenching begins

Trench nearly completed

Making sure it's plenty deep

Conduit placement for fuse box in front wall

The conduit and ditch to the house

We still have to run the wire through the conduit to the house, but our next priority is getting the insulation and flooring added. We want to get that in before the mice can take over.

We already scared one out of a bundle of our insulation kept outside. We don't have the option of storing it inside, so we need to work as quickly as possible.

Rodents definitely are an issue here - something we will be protecting against as we work on the building.