Sleepless Night

I installed (most of) the floor registers, with associated dust filters. I say most, because the kitchen sink cabinet has not yet been modified for access to the floor duct that is under the sink. I had cut my own custom-sized filters 6” x 14”, but they should have been slight smaller, so had to cut them down to fit into the ducts. No big problem, but I will want to remember that for the next set of filters.The cork flooring is completely installed, and the baseboard is started. We started in the laundry so that we can move the washer and dryer there from the garage. Floor looks good.

We installed the interior doors and will install the passage locks next.

I discovered yesterday that there is no water supply for the washlet. In most installations this water would come from the toilet tank filler supply, which is conveniently located. But in my case I am using a tank within the wall, so the water supply is hidden. Since the bathroom walls are tiled, we will have to tear the study wall open to supply water.

Speaking of bath tile, the fancy grout made of micro glass beads turned out to be a real pain to install. The normal method for installing grout is to press it into the cracks between tiles using a rubber squeegee. This leaves a film on the tile surface, which can be washed off with a damp sponge. However this grout does not wash off of the matte surface with a sponge and is hard to remove. The crew had to mask every grout line, which is why it took a week to perform a task that would normally take a couple of hours. It does look good.

I’m still battling over the size of the furnace that was installed. Since the subcontractor drilled holes in the cabinet to hang it from the ceiling, he cannot return it for credit. But it is about four times too big, and the heating engineer said (last time we had a similar problem) that the ‘smallest in the series’ would probably work. My heat load is only 18,000 BTU/Hr. This is still only half the output of the smallest furnaces made. But 80,000 BTU/Hr is way too big.

Needless to say I did not get a full night’s sleep — I wrote this at 3 am.

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