June 4-8, 2001
Plumbing, carpentry, and stone inspection are happening this week. The plumbers installed the tub faucet and most of the in-line hot water heater. The heater needs a chimney and vents before we can turn it on. That needs to happen fast as I had them cut/block the hot-water recirculation line. The lack of a recirculation line and the addition of a not-yet-working hot water heater means almost cold showers!
The O-rings on the shower bar were trashed, which explains our in-the-wall leak. The bar was removed and the rest of the plumbing pressure tested (again) – there are no other leaks. Need to get new o-rings (and install them without tearing them up, this time).
On the carpentry side the toilet room cladding is going up. The wood is the same cedar as the tub. The plans call for the toilet room roof to be painted sheet metal. Mitsuko and I couldn’t pick a color to paint it. Mitsuko then had the idea: why not wood. I drew a little diagram of how I thought it should look. We liked it. The end result is that the wood that was originally planned for the inside of the toilet room will wind up on the roof. We think it looks fantastic.
The external plumbing needs to be wrapped/insulated. I haven’t decided if I’m going to remove the unused section of the hot water recirculation circuit. If I leave it where it is it could be restored (if we ever decided it was necessary) by turning on one valve and soldering in one simple coupling.
The tub will sit on 5 rails. The rails were trimmed to match the slope of the platform that the tub sits on (so the tub will be level) and then cut to size. The pictures show the positions. They can be evenly space and just straddle the drain – perfect. Friday ends will be notched to match the bottom of the tub (which is not flat) and then the bub will be moved into place.
The ends of the rails were notched and the tub has been moved into position. Gorgeous. I put some water into it. Looks even better when wet! The chimney and vents for the in-line hot water heater are next.
