Shopping and Delivery
No building as such has happened in the last few days, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing happening. There’s been some coordination on the framing, I’m working on procuring the fixtures I’m responsible for, and the cabinets have arrived on site.
On the framing, my architects prepared some new and hopefully clearer drawings for the framers on their next visit. Without putting too fine a point on it, it’s pretty clear that the framing isn’t what it needed to be. Having chatted with everyone about the issue, I have some confidence that the framing will get resolved in due course.
Meanwhile, I’m working on the procurement of parts I have to buy: the appliances, plumbing fixtures, and electrical components like lighting. The sink and faucet arrived almost as soon as I ordered them, thankfully in the right colors.
The rest is proving a bit trickier. The vent hood was supposed to ship this week, and still hasn’t. The remaining appliances that I’m ordering from the local Miele dealer are more concerning still in our pandemic supply chain era. The refrigerator-freezer is only a few weeks out, which is good. All the Miele appliances, though, from the oven to the tumble dryer, are at least a month out.
They’re having me put down a 50% deposit to get them on order, and then I have to cross my fingers they’ll get here in time.
More excitingly, the cabinets have made it to site. The delivery process was not quite as smooth as it could’ve been. They didn’t give us any notice: it was a good thing I was up early on the day they arrived. More outside my control, the largest of the panels didn’t fit in the freight elevator. I’m having to temporarily store those in the common basement area. Apparently they need to go to someone’s shop for further processing in any case, so I’m hoping they won’t linger in the basement long enough for anyone to get upset with me.
On the electrical front, more drama still. From what I’ve been told, the electrical inspector has now decided that in addition to upgrading to minimum 100 amp service, I also need to run a feeder line with four conductors: the two hots, neutral, and ground. This poses a problem because the existing conduit, which runs through a cast concrete slab to the electrical meter in the trash room, is only sized for three conductors. Complying with that would require ripping apart the ceiling in the common hallway, which no one is going to enjoy.
I’m hoping they can get an exemption to this, or better still convince the inspector to let me keep the existing feeder wire in place. It’s been fine for over a dozen other people who’ve done recent renovations. Why they would suddenly require it now is unclear.
The plumber stopped by last week as well. He wants the lower half of the wall against the plumbing stack removed to do the new work. And there’s consensus that the supports for that wall are unlikely to be sufficient for all the weight that it will support. (This makes me slightly concerned that I had several upper cabinets filled with dishes hanging off of it!) So: the wall is coming down in the second and hopefully final batch of demolition slated to happen in the next few days.