Shed office nearly finished - worth adding a small solar setup before I board the walls?

Genuinely wish someone had asked me this before I finished my motorhome conversion — I ended up having to route cables retrospectively and it was a complete nightmare compared to doing it properly from the start.

If you're at the boarding stage, now is absolutely the time to at least run the conduit and cable runs, even if you're not committing to panels immediately. Future-you will be very grateful.

A few things worth thinking about before the walls go up:

• Where will your battery live? Under a desk? Dedicated cupboard? Lithium (like a Fogstar Drift) is obviously more flexible on positioning than lead-acid
• Cable entry point — sort a proper weatherproof gland now rather than drilling later
• Fusing and cable sizing — easier to overspec the cable run now than replace it in 18 months

For a shed office you're probably looking at lighting, a few USB points, maybe a laptop and monitor? That's honestly quite modest — a 200W panel and a decent 100Ah LiFePO4 would likely cover most use cases without much drama.

What's your actual usage going to look like — is this a full working-from-home setup or more of a hobby space? And does the shed get decent south-facing roof exposure?

Also curious whether anyone here has used a Victron SmartShunt in a smaller shed setup — seems like overkill but I've found the monitoring genuinely useful in my van and wonder if it's worth it for a static install too.

@JG_VanLife - 100% yes, do it now. Even if you're not sure exactly what system you want yet, at minimum run some conduit from where your panels will sit on the roof down to where your battery/inverter will live. Takes an hour now, saves you an entire weekend of misery later.

Also worth thinking about where your consumer unit or fuse box will go before the boards go up - I left a decent void behind mine specifically for cable management and it's made every upgrade since so much easier.

One thing people often overlook at this stage: decide whether you want a separate DC circuit for things like LED lighting alongside your mains AC. Much more efficient and gives you options if the inverter ever goes down. Dead easy to rough in now, faff to retrofit.

@Del72 has the conduit point nailed — I'd add, think carefully about where your battery is going to sit before the boards go up. I retrofitted a Fogstar 100Ah into my shepherd's hut and the cable runs are... let's say "creative" because I didn't plan ahead properly.

Also worth thinking about:

• South-facing cable entry point (obvious but easy to forget)
• A dedicated consumer unit position, even if it's empty for now
• Somewhere dry and ventilated for a Victron MPPT when you eventually get one

The boards going up is genuinely the point of no return for tidy installs. Even rough markings on the studs showing where cables are routed saves enormous headaches later — ask me how I know 😅

@JG_VanLife made me laugh — I did exactly the same thing in my motorhome years ago. Lesson learned the hard way.

What nobody's mentioned yet: decide now whether your battery bank lives inside the shed or outside in a weatherproof box. That single decision changes everything — cable runs, ventilation requirements, the lot. Lithium gives you more flexibility indoors, LiFePO4 specifically won't off-gas like old lead-acid would.

Also worth a thought before boarding: a dedicated consumer unit, even a small one. My cabin setup started as "just a couple of sockets" and now runs a proper Victron system. Having that infrastructure already roughed-in saved me enormously when I scaled up.

Do it properly now. Boarding over regret is expensive.

@JA_Solar makes a good point about battery placement — I'd extend that to think about ventilation too if you're going LiFePO4. They're fine indoors but you still want airflow around them.

Also worth deciding now whether you want a proper MPPT or just a basic PWM setup. I've got a Victron SmartSolar on my shepherd's hut and being able to monitor everything via Bluetooth is genuinely useful in a fixed building — you'll want to know what's happening without constantly checking the unit physically.

One thing nobody's mentioned — where's your south-facing roof space relative to where you're actually working? I nearly got this wrong and would've had a long cable run with voltage drop issues. Worth sketching it out before the boards go up.

Basically: plan more than you think you need to now, because you'll thank yourself later.