Anybody have any ideas on wiring the kitchen of an existing log home. The counter space is L-shaped with most of the walls being exterior walls.
I was thinking of poking through the one little bit of wall that backs onto a framed addition, bringing the wires into a box. and then run EMT from that box to the other receptacles. The EMT can then either be painted by the home owner or even covered with some wood trim.
Anybody else have any better ideas?

Thanks... Bruce

I never thought I'd see the day that I would suggest Wiremold. (I personally don't care for it at all), but it does have its merits.

If you use it, it will look cleaner than painted EMT.

Usually they drill through the logs in the ones I have looked at.
I was always curious how they did it.

In most of the log homes that I have seen the kitchen wall has (well concealed) plywood installed so the cabinets have something to mount to that won't settle over time.
You could run behind that if it's there.

If you're going to use conduit/Wiremold (or even cable) on the log surface you might want to try to get it routed in the groove so it blends in with the chinking when it's painted.

They do that while the building is being constructed.
This home that I'm working on was built in 1956. They're just a little slow getting it wired.

Also, no plywood behind the cabinets... they want to be able to see the logs.
My idea was to put the conduit in the groove.

I thought about wiremold, but the logs are round and I don't think that it would work in a groove and it would really stand out on the hump.

I also thought about cutting vertical grooves in the logs for the wiring that would be hidden behind the cabinets, but the homeowner doesn't want that.

Conduit can look quite nice, and it's available pre-painted. A simple matte black finish tends to make metal look 'clean.'

You job is complicated, however, by the uneven faces of the logs. This means either you use Mineralacs to space the pipe off the surface (not a bad idea, as it allows for cleaning), or you rout a groove in the face of the logs.

For routing, there is one word: Festo. Quite expensive, the Festo system includes rails that will guide the router independent of the surface of the logs. IMO, a good bed of caulk will suffice to support the pipe; boxes can be screwed to the logs.

Even with the fanciest arrangement, you'll still have plenty of hand & chisel work, especially at fittings and bends.

For drilling holes, nothing beats an impact driver. The 1/4" hex collet models will make holes to about 1" diameter; Both Milwaukee and Makita make larger models that have a 7/16" hex collet, and will take the 'self -feed' bits for larger holes.

When I piped in the lights in my screen cage I fabricated all of the EMT and "tacked" it in place with a few clamps. When I was sure it was right I took it down and painted it. Then when I put it back up it looked great.
Just be sure you price all the labor into your job and make sure they will be happy with what you do. I am surprised they are tolerating seeing anything that looks like it came from the 20th century. All of the log cabins I have seen go for the Abraham Lincoln look.

How about routing the conduit inside the cabinets and running down (or up) from a j-box wherever an outlet needs to go?
That way all that they will see would be the outlet and a few inches of conduit between it and the cabinet.

Inside the cabinets MC cable might be easier to work with and just sleeve it with some "woody" material where it runs down the back wall.

I brain stormed with my wife on this. She was/is a builder.
She says, bring your pipe down in a corner, so they can hide it with a strip of live edge wood and wire in the cabinets with tombstones on the counter.

... then we talked about something else

Is there any shot at routing UF outside the structure and then coming in from below?

It's not too uncommon for log cabins to have the bottom log resting on drained soil/ sand/ somesuch.

In which case, what you really have is a digging project.

Auger bits -- with extensions -- and a 7/16 impact auger driver -- can take the UF straight down into the soil.

BTW, most log cabin construction uses a pretty crude mating between the horizontals. This is corrected by daubing the gaps with local material: mud/ moss/ bark/ whatnot to create a wind seal and some sort of crude insulation. This corridor can be opened up if you're close enough to an open end -- by drilling horizontally all the way through. You'll want extensions. Then, cork up your run with a suitable dowel and marine glue when all is done.

There is a bit driver that you can purchase -- advertized in the back of EC magazine that permits bits as long as your all thread. (3/8 x 16 -- to ten feet -- unless you add a rod coupling and some thread-locker.)

Because the gap is already pretty much there, you may find drilling in this slot shockingly fast.

Rotary grinding heads are available for small angle grinders such as Metabo and Milwaukee and Makita and... They'd make fast work of roughing in any receptacles to the horizontals. Then you could follow up with Norton's sanding flap-discs -- with a very aggressive grit -- then step down to a finer grit, etc, etc.

I would recommend using double-gang receptacle penetrations as they're going to be easier to work -- and solve modern needs.

Don' forget to consider the need for LV, CAT 5, 5e cables.

Lastly, don't forget that you might get away with drilling horizontally straight under the building -- even if you have to farm out some of that work.

There are a number of under-the-sidewalk boring rigs that could well get you underneath the building. Then, you could 'chase the bit head' (metallic) with magnets, sound, or what not, and cut-in floor boxes. They may be far sweeter for the owner than Plan A.

You could put floor boxes as purely pulling points underneath cabinet locations.

Leaving the interior undisturbed has endless advantages.

No-one is going to complain about ditches dug outside.

Floor boxes can be encased in mud/ concrete, too. They can also be insulated with low-expansion foam. (The 'crack' stuff is too powerful and will distort any plastic box.)

Any ditch digging can be held to a mere 14" by using GFCI protection -- back at the panel -- of which I don't know whether it's inside or outside.

It's either the above -- or call in trained termites -- and keep them on piecework.

Thank you for all of the suggestions.

As I said, the house was built in 1956. Last year they raised it up and put a basement under it.
I brought a service to the building and wired the basement, while they lived in the main floor.
The homeowners are now gone for the winter and want me to wire the main floor while they're away.
They had actually agreed to the idea of EMT in the kitchen area. I however do take a little pride in my work and I think that it'll look like crap, which is why I came here to ask for alternatives.
I've never seen or heard of pre-painted EMT before and if available here, I think it's a great idea. Like Reno said, a matte black wouldn't look bad at all.


Thanks again... Bruce

If you have access to the side of the wall from a door, how about removing the door frame and drilling horizontally thru the logs?

Wheatland, IIRC, advertises prefinished EMT.

They also pitch 20-foot EMT, too.

It must go at a premium; but who can compete with a factory paint job?

I was just thinking about measuring VERY carefully and drill up into the logs from the basement. That should be possible in all but the exterior walls.

I did a rewire job once over a crawl space. We drilled a very small hole through the floor an inch from the wall, poked a wire down and then the helper in the crawl, measured over 3" from the wire and drilled up into the stud cavity. We established a standard of N/S/E/W to be sure we were going the right way.
Something along those lines might work, using a plastic box that you can drill through.

For the countertop outlets you could run the wires along the back of the cabinets (just under the countertop). Then drill a 2" hole straight into the log and then drill a 3/4" hole up into the log. Make an opening for a metal old work box and fish the wires.

Hey guys,
I've never really worked on a log house, per se, but I do remember a rather flush American guy a number of years ago bought some land here and wanted to put a house on it, made of logs.

Long story short, I missed out on the quote, but later found out it wasn't a real log house, but was in fact quarter-sawn strips of timber on the inside of the rooms, nailed to the normal stud-work, so it looked like it was actually a log home from the inside, but it wasn't.

I'm guessing that by using REAL logs, you can't run wiring through the logs, because like all timber does, it will move over time as the wood expands/contracts/warps, would end up pinching the wiring?

In places where they do a lot of logging we do have real log homes. We rented this one in North Dakota.




These are built off site, disassembled and reassembled on the customer's lot. These were the tract home version of a log cabin with a simple joint




Back in the olden days they used a more sophisticated joint that sheds water and lasts 100 years or more



In retrospect I am guessing they predrill the electric after the initial fitting of the logs when they take it apart for delivery.

Log homes are typically "prepared" at a mill, with each piece faced, grooves, and jointed- all according to that vendor's particular design.

Corner joints are available with the squared dovetail, a half-moon, and even a copy of the "Lincoln Log" toy. Another design has the logs placed vertically, rather than laid flat.

One of the more common styles these days has a concave cut made on the 'bottom' side, with a lengthwise groove. The curve rests the log securely atop the one below, and the groove holds a felt gasket, to supplement the 'chinking' of log seams.

"Backwoods Home" magazine has regular articles, and publishes a number of books, on log home construction. Their authors have tried a variety of approaches to the electrical, and it's worth reading their works.

Personally, I'd run pipe as my first choice. Where they simply can't abide the sight, there's no reason you can't paint it "woodgrain," using milk paint and glaze. (AKA "Antiqueing")

If the log cabin, proper, has been elevated to a second level, then floor boxes (pick your brand) solve your receptcacle runs.

Go with low voltage, wireless, controls for all lighting switches.

BTW, LEDs can be uniquely addressed if powered by Cat 5e cables. Google around on LED lumieres. They can turn corners on a dime and are inherently fire proof. These babies can even be color tuned -- from an iPad app.

You'll see video on them at Ask This Old House and DIY Network.

Cat 5 fishes a whole lot easier than MC.

The cost of the new style fixtures is largely offset by the ease of running wire in such old work.

Cheers.

I've wired a couple of houses where I installed plugmold onto the bottom of the cabinet, out of sight. If you ran mc in the cabinet and installed plug mold. you wouldn't touch the walls except to get power from one set of cabinets to another. Also installed LED tape lighting in the same installs. Worked wonderfully.

Legrand makes a new modular system for undercabinet power, lights, attachments. Pretty neat, pricey, but neat.

http://www.legrand.us/cabinet-lighting-power.aspx#.UtH2LvuFfUk

I haven't used it yet.

I too, was going to say that I saw Wiremold installed in log homes. They would run it right in the joints, and then paint it to match the color of the joints. Then it would run parallel to the floor until it hit the corner, then turn down into the basement if it was on the first floor.

If I was going with the surface raceway in the chinking I would use the plastic since it has a low, flat profile.
With a combination of drilling, surface raceways and hiding in the cabinets you should be able to come up with a neat job.

Can you cut the plugs into the back splash?

The back splash is the logs.
Also, the counter top is granite, which I'm not going to try to drill through since I don't want it to crack and I have to replace it.
I'm going with the metal conduit. Unfortunately the only pre-painted EMT the I can get is red. So I'll build it, take it back down, paint it and then put it back up.

BTW, for TWH or any other Canadians, in the current code and table 16, I have to use a #12 bonding conductor for #12 wires now?

Allied has colored conduit in 8 standard colors, but I don't know if they have a minimum order.

http://www.alliedeg.us/index.php?P=TrueColorEMT

CSA has made a mess of our code.

It looks like you need a 12 bond with 12 wire, unless you use table 5C and derate the 12 wire. So, the more conductors you have in the conduit, the smaller the bond wire.

Maybe someone else has a better way to apply the rules?

Thanks ghost, but it says right at the bottom of the page that the conduit is UL approved as opposed to ULC approved. We're not allowed to use it in Canada, at least until somebody's palm gets greased, I mean that the product gets certified.

Thanks TWH, it looks like I'll have to buy some green # 12.