The sunny part of our property is about 110m (360’) away from the house. There’s a building there we call the studio. It’s about 16m2 (174 sq ft) and currently unfinished: the inside walls are bare studs and the “ceiling” is the underside of the roof. I’m wedging a half-bath and a vermicomposting toilet into it, and I’ve already wired it for electric lights, ceiling fans, and hot water. Once I’ve finished the plumbing, I’ll drywall the interior and it will look like a real (if tiny) home. It will get hooked up to our huge capacity (8kw) solar panel array and LiFePO4 storage batteries (20kwh).
Of course, the studio doesn’t need that kind of energy. We need that at the house to run servers and fans to keep down the mold and lights and hot water and a dishwasher and washer and dryer and charging Joulee the Free Salvage Tesla (if she ever gets here). So I need over 300m of 1-gauge AWG THWN stranded copper wire. Commodity item, easy to get. Except here. I’ve done internet searches and asked mainland wire suppliers but it simply doesn’t seem to be available. There’s a big-box home improvement store that says they’ll deliver it here, but I would have to buy two spools and waste most of one of them for a total cost of almost $6,000. I’d jump on that option, except that I’ve had problems with that particular retailer claiming they’ll deliver something but then backing out.
Generally, I’ve been surprised at how easy it is to get things in this isolated place. I thought a lot of things would be hard to find. But… wire?
—2p