May 11-May 15
Monday: A very noisy day as they work on taking the kitchen apart. Nearly complete by the end of the day. The door to the hallway to the mudroom is gone. We can begin to see the view instead of oak cabinets.
The hole in the center of the floor is the old (useless) downdraft vent in the island
Tuesday: Kitchen is now down to the studs. Two vent pipes in the wall where a large set of windows is planned will need to be relocated. After much discussion, we need to lose 12″ from the overall width of the window to accommodate that. Master bathroom demo started.
We now have a plug in the hall bathroom, really hot water from the shower, but the tub spout is still dripping…
I checked water temperatures with my fast read cooking thermometer as the shower felt cool even turned all the way up. Apparently the shower valve has some anti-scald features that are now set to give us the water from the hot tank (which maxes out at 120 degrees anyway)
The project manager offered me a lesson in how to work the plug in the tub – and if he hadn’t, I can’t imagine ever figuring out how to use it. Even with the lesson it’s really odd, and Kohler doesn’t appear to offer step-by-step directions on how PureFlo drains operate. What looks like the overflow controls the stopper. 1/4 turn to the left closes the plug. 1/2 turn to the right and then push, opens it.
I have no idea how I ended up with a bath plug that makes me feel like an idiot (I have computers for that – who needs anything else?).
Wednesday: Aamazingly noisy! Master bathroom demolition continued.
Whether connected to the demolition or not, the circuit for the heated floor and towel bar showed a GFCI fault and wouldn’t reset. Final testing direction from the manual? Shut off the circuit at the breaker and have an electrician look at it 🙂 I did not enjoy my morning shower half as much (and the tile floor in the wet part of the room doesn’t dry as quickly) without the lovely heated floor. How quickly humans get spoiled…
Cooler shower water problem isn’t fixed. Temperature in the tank varies a bit during the day and when I measured on Tuesday, I just saw that the shower was hotter than it had been that morning. I failed to measure the other faucets to compare.
Today, I measured water temperatures in the bathroom faucets, tub faucet, laundry sink downstairs and they’re all about 12° F warmer than the shower water. So the plumber and Grohe need to have a chat to see what to do about that. Plumber’s suggestion to just turn up the hot water tank temperature not good enough…
Thursday: Site meeting. Electrician doing rough-in on the family room and kitchen. Discussions about wall mounting the family room TV (versus standing it on the mantel) – the electrician talked me into a wall mount. How many HDMI cables exiit behind the TV ?(two; in case we don’t set up a receiver). Every time I think I’m prepared, there are more questions.
Plumber contacted Grohe and there is a second adjustable doohickey in the valve he didn’t know about. When plumbers come to do rough in they will fix it so we get the hot water unmodified (when valve is at max) from the tank
Friday: Electrician continuing rough-in. Greg spent the afternoon starting framing in the master bathroom, moving lumber out of the garage to the various rooms that need it and planning (i.e. phone calls).