After a week of waiting for trades to show up when they promised earlier in the week, they all showed up on Friday.
The upshot of the day’s labour is that we have LIGHTS,
These are temporary light fixtures while we do all the finishing activities that might break the permanent fixtures
we have HOT WATER, and we have a massive cabinet in the bedroom/bathroom.
The cabinet/furniture maker is Vincent Lang, who has a workshop near Sechelt. He has built the unit (and the kitchen cabinets) out of formaldehyde-free 3/4″ plywood. I was able to choose the alder veneer before it was laid up, and Vincent custom-mixed the stain, finishing the cover coat with a tough, green finish, as well as designed the doors to match a photograph of a cabinet I showed him from a magazine. Local trade, quality construction (included mortise and tenon drawers, soft-closing hardware, etc.) No particle board in our house if I can help it! I confess that a flood in our apartment convinced us that particle board cabinetry, such as the IKEA cabinets, falls apart when it gets wet. Not sustainable.
The bedroom side of the cabinet
A view of the bathroom side of the cabinet. Hardware is yet to be installed.
Plus, I filled in my spare time cleaning and cutting flooring to its useful length. Very satisfying progress.
On demand hot water heater
Let me tell you about the hot water heater. It’s a Navien CR180 on demand gas fixture, which claims 98% energy efficiency, “the highest in the industry.” And “best gallons per minute performance when comparing input BTU.” It has to be vented on an outside wall. We considered a re-circulating booster, which would deliver the hot water instantaneously, keeping all the pipes filled with hot water. We decided against it because of course, it requires more fuel to keep it instantly ready. So now the question is: do we just let the initial (cold) water out of the faucet go down the drain? When we get the $ together to install a solar hot water booster, the water going into the tank will be hot on sunny days, but it still won’t deliver hot water until the pipes have been emptied of their room temperature water.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Very nice! Almost livable now?
Your wall/cabinet is a dream – huge amount of storage, beautiful to behold.
Sure, Liam, livable as in camping! No kitchen, no shower, but hey.
Joy, yes, we think it’s pretty beautiful. I have trouble imagining what we will fill it with just now. I need to put some great art on the 10 foot end panel, because it’s a little imposing.
As you know we have a similar “instant” hot water system, and it took a little getting used to. Because our kitchen is on the opposite side of the house, it takes a while for hot water to reach the sink. We’ve dealt with that by keeping two 4 litre jugs at the sink, and we fill them first before the sink. It takes about 6 litres before we have hot water. We then use the water in the jugs to wash fruit and veggies, fill the kettle for tea, and cook veggies. And we let the pots and pans stack up so as to only fill the sink with hot water once! (Justifying not washing up until it’s really worth it!) We’ve also become used to using cold water for handwashing at sinks–the most important considerations for hand washing is the use of soap and friction for a long time rather than the temperature of the water.