The Cook Shed

[WarDamnEagle]

Basically did little to nothing today but I did take a few minutes to finish one outlet. I had already inset the box a few days ago after "unretiring" one of the chisels so it's not like I had to exert too much effort. There will be three outlets and one, two-gang switch box with two dual-switch Decora switches. I actually didn't know such a thing existed until looking at weatherproof, four switch options in a two gang box.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Another small victory.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I got power energized today and even temporarily connected the two receptacles that are installed so that I could break out the corded tools to cut in the last two boxes. I love my cordless tools but there's no comparison when you need a heavy duty drill, for example.

When I took measurements for power, I estimated something like 125' to the house where the power and water to the shop exited, 10' at the Cook Shed itself, and another 110'+ under the house to the two exterior panels. I bought a 250' roll of 10/2 UF and started at the Cook Shed so that if I had to make a splice it would be as simple as nailing in a junction box under the house. Well I will chalk this one up to luck, regardless of how much I think of my estimating prowess. 2' +/- to spare. Nice.

I have had my two family decorators involved with fans and lighting over the last couple of weeks (wife and daughter). I eventually ordered and hung two damp rated, builder grade Hunter, 52" ceiling fans. Wanted to go with the original Hunters but didn't think the $500+ difference per fan was worth the expense for the Cook Shed. Used 5' rods which puts the fan blades just over 9' high. FWIW, everything I read said not to mount ceiling fans in an outdoor setting higher than ~9' or the breeze effect will be minimized. I haven't wired these up yet but the CFM to FT2 ratio looks good with two of them. Time will tell.

Consensus on lighting is to have 8 pendants of some ilk. I have one sample in hand and we are waiting on an alternative to be delivered. Trying to stay towards the low end of the spectrum as it really adds up when you multiply by 8. I am also adding some additional area lighting off of two adjacent trees. We currently have area lighting for the "lower lawn" in 3 trees which is operated by a switch from the shop. I am discarding one that's adjacent to the Cook Shed and adding two. So there will be two near the Cook Shed on a switch and two more between the Shop and the Cook Shed controlled from the shop......hopefully that all makes sense.

Daughter put the ixnay on my string of cafe lights around the eaves of the Cook Shed - bummer. I'm installing a switched outlet on the plate beam anyway....you never know when you might need some "Christmas lights". She has been duly forgiven though as she pulled her mother over to my side on the roofing material which was no easy feat. More on that subject later.

I really enjoy this stage of a major project. All the heavy lifting is done and we're down to the fine details. Also there tends to be less deadlines of the uncontrollable like, have to finish "X" before the rain hits, etc. I don't consider myself an electrician by any means but the fit out wiring is easy work and requires a bit of creativity to make the runs as obscure as possible; both are within my limited electrical capabilities. Estimating I will have everything done and the lights on permanently in another few days. That assumption is premised on finding a pendant we can all agree on. At that point I can get some CMU, brick, mortar, and sand ordered so that we can move on to the reason we built the Cook Shed in the first place.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I finished up the main runs and the switch box yesterday. I ran a trunk line off one of the switches up to the main plate beams on both sides so that I am more or less ready to run the local wiring when I install the 8 pendants. Alternative light 1 isn't arriving until Monday so lighting is on hold for now. I also need to finish up the two area light fixtures that are going into adjacent trees but the wire is ran from the switch for those.

I mentioned these dual Decora switches before. They really solved a problem by allowing me to have 4 switches in a 2 gang switch box. I am not overly impressed with their quality though. One of them actually broke while I was screwing it down. I was able to cobble it back together so it would work but I went ahead and ordered two more; they are relatively cheap - in all meanings of the word. I need to do some research and see if I can find a more industrial alternative. Leviton advertised them as "commercial grade" but I certainly wouldn't characterize them as such. I was a little surprised that it broke as there was no interference behind or beside it. I removed some of the internal plastic on the 2 gang box so there's plenty of room for the switches and connections. The receptacle box below is a whole other story though as it has the 10/2 main power feed, a 12/2 for the other outlets, and the 14/2 feed for the area lighting running through it. I somehow managed to get it all stuffed in there with the receptacle.

In contrast to the Decora switches, I can't enough good about the flip up cover plate. A bit pricey but exceptional quality. These are made by Kyle Switch Plates and they make them at least up to 4 gang and maybe even larger.

As a bit of an aside, there are no electrical conduit short radius elbows produced. I repurposed sch 80 90s as they are gray and not white like their sch 40 siblings. I may yet paint the conduit but for now the gray isn't bothering me too much and it's all on the backside of the shed so they should be relatively unobtrusive.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Got two new switches yesterday (a replacement and a spare) and I immediately broke the first one on install. It catastrophically failed just like the first one. Upon meticulous inspection the only cause I could come up with was too much pressure from the power feed which is a 12/2. The other two wires are 14/2 which are quite a bit more flexible. So I put a better bend in the 12/2 and as carefully as possible successfully got a switch installed. I guess the old adage, "third times the charm" has some truth. I don't think I've ever broken a switch before, much less two in succession.

Also finished up the two area light fixtures that I hung in adjacent trees. The PO of our property had installed three dual bulb fixtures in trees around the lower lawn and had used simple sheetrock screws into the trees. Two of them are currently hanging by the wires as the trees have pushed the screws out. I decided to strap mine on but had to come up with an unobtrusive way to do so. So start with a robust, cast aluminum fixture, carefully drill a hole in the lower front and insert a rubber grommet. Attach a metal backing plate with a 1" aluminum hardware tie-down strap sandwiches in between (the type without hooks) and hang. This assembly work so well I ordered two more straps (~$13 per pair on Amazon) and two more fixtures to replace the two original ones. I had previously sourced some 1/2" wide, stainless cable staples for the wiring in the shed so I used those to secure the 14/2 UF to the trees. FWIW, there appears to only be one brand of these stainless cable staples and they were not easy to source for a reasonable price. Electroplated galvanized are easy to source but, again, not robust enough for treated lumber.

And to finish off the day yesterday, I took the trailer to a landscaping supply business and bought a yd3 super sack of #67 river rock. Managed to get about 2/3 of the bag out before I had to dog off. Will finish that off today as soon as I am relieved of babysitting responsibilities for one of our grandsons. The rock provides water drainage around the shed slab and also keeps the water coming off the roof from splashing dirt and debris onto the slab. I will cover the rest of the bare dirt with some pine straw but the leaves will serve that purpose going forward.

Pretty much down to pendant lights and roofing material after I get the rest of the rock out. Nice feeling to get to this point.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

I do have one electrical issue that I'm not sure is solvable; so if there are any electricians around, real or otherwise, here's the situation. The short story is I wired a GFCI receptacle on a switch and it trips immediately upon reset (assuming the switch is on). From my limited research it appears to be an issue with the "bundled" neutrals in my wiring set up which causes some type of very slight imbalance in the power between the hot and the neutral lines. What is puzzling is I have 3 unswitched, daisy chained GFCI receptacles on the same power feed and they operate normally. The GFCI that is tripping is mounted 10' up on one of the plate beams in the case that we want to plug in any string, Christmas, or other string lights in the future and have them switched. In the absence of a solution to the tripping I will just replace the GFCI with a normal outlet. Yes I know that doesn't meet code per se but it's not at ground level, will have a waterproof cover, will likely never see water, and won't ever be used for a corded tool or anything of the like.

So don't bother reading beyond this point unless you're really interested in the details. Here's the wiring setup. The 10/2 feed from the house comes into an outlet box (just below the switch box) and is landed on a GFCI receptacle. There are two 12/2 wires landed on the same lugs, one provides power to the switch box located just above and the other feeds the next GFCI receptacle (one post over). Another 12/2 goes from that GFCI receptacle to the third one located on the last back post. I did not use the "Load" output on the first GFCI receptacle and non-GFCI receptacles in the other two outlets as I prefer to have each outlet individually protected - just my preference.

In the switch box, there is the 12/2 power incoming; 3 14/2 wires feeding the pendant lights, ceiling fans, and area lights; and 1 12/2 feeding the GFCI receptacle in question. All the neutrals (white wires) are connected together as are all the ground wires. The ground wires are also connected to the ground lugs on each of the 2 dual Decora switch assemblies.

The hot incoming (black wire) is connected to the power-in on one of the Decora switches and a jumper is connected to the other switch's power-in. Each of the 4 outgoing hots are connected to the 4 individual switch lugs (2 per switch).

The only potential resolution I have come up with so far is to unbundle the neutral that goes up to the GFCI receptacle and to connect that neutral directly back to the incoming power feed (which is landed on the first ground level GFCI receptacle). In reality that would take a short jumper from the outlet box to the switch box. That's imminently doable but a total pain so I don't want to do it unless I'm reasonably sure that will solve the problem. In my non-electrician mind, it seems like it wouldn't because that incoming neutral is still connected to the "bundle" of neutrals but perhaps I make that assumption just because I don't really understand what causes the apparent "imbalance" that trips the GFCI. The other possible issue is the brand new GFCI is faulty out of the box. That is also something I could try, but I think that's a very long shot - but not impossible.

 

[1911]

In the absence of a solution to the tripping I will just replace the GFCI with a normal outlet.

That’s what I would do. Not an electrician, but I wired most of my house myself. I’m not a fan of GFCi outlets in general, they’re frequently more pain than they’re worth IMo. I used them where it really made sense (bathrooms, kitchen, outside outlets low on the wall, etc.) but personally I wouldn’t use one 10’ off the ground under a roof like yours.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

That’s what I would do. Not an electrician, but I wired most of my house myself. I’m not a fan of GFCi outlets in general, they’re frequently more pain than they’re worth IMo. I used them where it really made sense (bathrooms, kitchen, outside outlets low on the wall, etc.) but personally I wouldn’t use one 10’ off the ground under a roof like yours.

That pretty much aligns with my thinking as well. Would still be curious if there's something I'm missing that is causing it to trip.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Finished up the wiring today. Alternate #1 Pendant light got the approval of my two main decorating consultants (wife and daughter) so I hung it earlier this week and ordered 7 more. I was really trying to minimize the visible wiring as much as possible so I found some tiny junction boxes (tiny like 2" square by 1.25" tall) and they were just right to contain 3 yellow wire nuts. I used 3 of those on top of the plate beams and ran a single 14/2 branch along the ceiling next to the most adjacent rafter and over to each of the light rough-in boxes (repurposed 1/2" deep ceiling fan boxes). Used a small forstner bit to groove the wood under the rough-in box to get the wiring in from the back. Pretty happy with the way the wiring turned out; much less obtrusive than I anticipated.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

And Baby Boy called a couple of days ago to say he was taking next week off and visiting.......and we had better have brick, block, and mortar on hand. I had that task on a gentle simmer but that set off a bit of a scramble with my wife turning up the heat; anything for the baby. Of course given the short deadline, that meant we had to go with whatever they had on the yard and of course their deliveries were booked out a week so I had to get the materials home myself.

Went with "Old Jackson" and plain old gray mortar (sample in photo is white mortar). It sort of spoke to us and I think really looks the part. He is arriving tomorrow so we will see where this goes over the next few days.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Son and I started playing with our adult Legos Saturday afternoon and much of Sunday. His original design was a CMU foundation with two levels and poured concrete "countertops" on each level. Firebox would then go on the lower left with firebrick and regular brick and the smoke chamber would go on the upper right countertop, also with firebrick and regular brick. While we were laying everything out the wandered by and quickly said no exposed CMU. Given her unwavering support for this entire project there was no way to say no. She's also a CE so it wasn't like we could tell her that wouldn't work. So, we eliminated a 1/2 CMU block in both directions and replaced the space with the Old Jackson brick. The concrete countertop for the bases will be poured over the CMU and the brick. Net result is the loss of an inch or two in each direction - no biggie.

He had to fly out Monday for an interview so we didn't get started in earnest until Wednesday morning. My expectations weren't very high for us actually being able to make this look halfway decent but it turned out pretty well....or at least good enough to be hidden by brick. We are obviously slow, like real slow, but in our defense we had to overcome a mistake (in hindsight) that I made when I built the Cook Shed. Given our sideways rain at times, I agreed with my concrete guy that we should put a 1 degree slope on the slab, front to back. That meant our normal 3/8" base joint of mortar needed to be more like 1 1/2" on the downhill side. Now that size of mortar joint is highly irregular and wouldn't pass inspection for a structural building. One way to tackle that issue would be to cut the blocks but that's not the easiest of tasks either for a couple of amateurs. The other way would be to make up the difference over each joint but that means all the blocks would be sloping except for the last course (which would totally mess with my mind even if they are all hidden). Given we only have 3 course on the low side, that also didn't seem that doable. In the end we went with the higher base joint but we cheated by using broken CMU block spacers under some of the blocks. Given that we are going to fill either every core or at least every other core with concrete and we are only going 3 CMU on the offending side, I'm pretty confident it will be structurally sound.

Next up brick. Can't wait.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Thought I would post a rendering or two of where we are hoping to go with this BBQ pit. Maybe a bit ambitious but his general idea was to build a barrel style pizza oven for the fire box and have that also feed the smoke chamber. In addition somewhere along the way he became a little fascinated with Argentine style BBQs so we want to make sure we can shovel hot coals into the smoke chamber. The renderings are from his 3D model. The model doesn't include the brick around the base, brick around the pizza oven, the chimney or the flue connections between the pizza oven and the smoke chamber, or any of the doors for that matter. We have ideas of how to do all of those elements but some of that will be dry stacking trial and error as we go along. The last photo is one that gave him some inspiration for incorporating the Argentine grill elements into the smoke chamber.

It helps to use your imagination a little bit when you look at the 3D renderings...........

 

[Chungas Revenge]

Going to be epic..

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Going to be epic..

Thanks. Definitely going to be a slow roll unless he gives me liberty to move forward without him present. Of course there are two more ancillary projects that have been cooked up between the wife and myself which will keep me busy for some time.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Youngest son left this morning. We didn't make as much progress as we had hoped but I think the hardest part of the base is behind us. We managed to get the brick hogged out by laying a leveling bed of mortar on the low end and letting it partially dry before laying the first course of brick. Not sure which is worse to lay, block or brick; but both were difficult for us given the slight slope we were working against. Hopefully the second and subsequent courses go faster.

We also had some nice distractions over the weekend which slowed us down. Oldest son is moving from Florida to Colorado Springs this month so he brought a U-Haul truck up yesterday with some of the heavier stuff. We put that in a local rental storage. His plan is to empty the house into that unit and start his new job without moving the family out until they buy a house out there. In the meantime, our daughter in law and two grandchildren will stay with us. Our daughter and her family came over for the weekend to see her brothers so we have had a full house. Nice to have all the children and the 5 grandchildren all together though. Youngest son decided late Friday to smoke a brisket and a butt yesterday so between U-Hauls and cooking I'm surprised we got as far as we did.

 

[Chungas Revenge]

Sounds like a perfect day.

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Had a bit of free time between catching up on domestic duties and decided to hang a couple of more lights. Well after 3 or 4 I figured I might as well hang them all. Of course around light number 7 a big storm rolled in and I found myself wondering about the fact that I'm not in a Faraday Cage. Well I didn't die so I guess a substantial wood structure is adequate.

 

[Waorani]

Had a bit of free time between catching up on domestic duties and decided to hang a couple of more lights. Well after 3 or 4 I figured I might as well hang them all. Of course around light number 7 a big storm rolled in and I found myself wondering about the fact that I'm not in a Faraday Cage. Well I didn't die so I guess a substantial wood structure is adequate.

View attachment 4192704

Needs icicle lights, a lot of icicle lights!

 

[WarDamnEagle]

Needs icicle lights, a lot of icicle lights!

Let me quote from post #103:

Daughter put the ixnay on my string of cafe lights around the eaves of the Cook Shed - bummer. I'm installing a switched outlet on the plate beam anyway....you never know when you might need some "Christmas lights". She has been duly forgiven though as she pulled her mother over to my side on the roofing material which was no easy feat. More on that subject later.

Time will tell Ed; time will tell.

 

[rkymtnflyfisher]

@WarDamnEagle did you solve your GFCI issue? (I may have skipped a post or two)