I've been making slow progress on the permanent wiring of the McMansion. Since I built it, I have had a long extension cord running from my shop out to the coop so I could use the lights. Now that the weather has moderated, it is time to put in something safer and more permanent. Total material for this phase will be about $75 or so, the wire being the most expensive piece.
I have a good friend up the street who is a professional Journeyman electrician, and he took a look at what I proposed doing and blessed it. He knows the local electrical code so I will be doing this right the first time.
Based on measurements between my shop and the coop, I bought a 50' length of 12-2 conductor that is rated for ground burial. It is gray in color, very stiff, and about $1 per foot, so only buy what you really need. The wire must be in conduit from the point where it leaves the structure until it enters the ground. I installed a piece of 1/2" plastic conduit into the coops's junction box that I installed back in January, and secured it to the 4x4 post on that corner of the run. The end of it is well below ground level and covered by the wire mesh apron and landscaping rock.
I went out today and got about 12 feet of trench dug, wire installed, re-buried and the ground tamped before it started raining again. It's all grunt work because it has to be 18" deep. I have a narrow shovel for trenching, and the soil is soft enough that it digs fairly easy at this point. I am coming into an area that has never been disturbed and has lots of rocks, so this may be a bit of a slog.
Once I get the wire to the nearest corner of the shop, I can come out of the trench with another short conduit run up and through the wall into the shop itself. Then it is a matter of mounting another junction box, transitioning to regular interior grade 12-2 Romex wire and running it to the circuit breaker inside the shop. I have an empty socket and a spare 15 amp circuit breaker for the coop so it will be on it's own. Once it's wired properly, I will wire that circuit up with a Ground Fault Interrupter just for good measure.
It's pretty straight forward work, the important point is to make sure you use the right size wire for your particular coop. There are larger sizes of this wire available if your current load is going to be higher, but 12-2 is plenty big for my little coop. If you have questions, most of the home centers usually have an electrician around who can advise you on what materials you will need. If you are lucky enough to have a pair of teenage boys around to do the digging for you, then you can stand around with a cup of coffee in your hand instead of a shovel, and supervise.
As always, the final requirements and the result is determined by your needs and the local electrical code. Be safe, and work smart!
Cheers, and happy digging!
