Seussian Plumbing

bye, K.C.

After more work than you'd expect (given where I was yesterday), we have a functioning sink, dishwasher, and yea, even disposal. After a trip to Home Depot, I discovered that my original dry-fit plan wasn't going to work (even if I'd gotten that last piece in the vent stack), so I made another trip to Home Depot for more fittings. The trip was totally worth it, though, because I saw this in the parking lot. Apparently it was the last day for someone named K.C., and his or her co-workers bid them a fond farewell by wrapping their truck (with a Home Depot shopping cart thrown in for good measure) in plastic. The antenna has a cardboard tube with goodbyes written on it, so K.C. will know who to blame.

the maiden voyage of the dishwasher

After returning home, I tried an alternative solution I'd come up while playing around with the available parts at Home Depot, but decided my original plan (updated) was the way to go. So I forged ahead and started gluing, and finally arrived at a completed vent stack and drain. After waiting a bit, I tried things out, and discovered a small leak around the strainer, but everything else was good. After re-seating that with more plumber's putty, everything seemed good to go.

So I tried the ultimate test -- starting the dishwasher. With little fanfare but much excitement, I let it run a 'quick wash' cycle, and all was well. Woohoo!

Pricing Puzzlers

We seem to be running a home for wayward deer. We spotted another pregnant doe today, along with what's probably one of her offspring from a previous year. More exciting was seeing four Cooper's hawks flying around, sometimes chasing and being chased by a crow.

I've pulled all the wire except for the new range fixture, and that I got pulled into the kitchen wall and started running up towards the main panel. Another couple hours of work and I'll be ready for an inspection. I might have been done today, but I ran out of 12-2 Romex on Wednesday and had to get more yesterday. In a curious bit of pricing at Home Depot, 100 ft. was about $30. A 250 ft. roll, rather than 2.5X as much, was $39. The 6-3 cable for the range (8-3 would have done, I think, but they didn't have any) had a similarly puzzling pricing scale: 50 ft. cut off a spool was the same price as a 125 ft. roll. I wasn't sure exactly how much 12-2 I'd need so that was a no-brainer. The 6-3 I pondered for a bit, but I figure the good folks at Casa Decrepit will be able to use the leftovers when the move their kitchen into what's currently the dining room.

During the week I plugged the DWV stack and left it filled with water for a couple days, so that's good to go, too. Thank goodness for trade-specific stores like Moran Plumbing Supply. They not only had the riser clamp I needed a couple weeks back, but they knew what I was talking about and had an extension hose for my test plug.

But any inspection will have to wait until next week. Saturday through Tuesday I'll be at the Habitat build-a-thon, all day and then some since I'll be a crew leader. Not only will this be the biggest build-a-thon that East Bay has done, but I think it will be the best organized I've seen, too. Hopefully that'll be the case...

Little Blue Boxes

This week I worked on the kitchen, and actually moved forward with things. I finished placing the boxes and fixtures for electrical, which if you've ever looked at the code requirements for a kitchen, are substantial. Two small appliance circuits, dishwasher, disposal, lighting, and a 240v range circuit, and it all adds up. Plus there's the refrigerator, a 120v outlet for a newer gas stove (we don't need it, but it's easier to add now than later), range hood, under cabinet lights, and for good measure, we have a couple of recessed fluorescents above the sink and the adjacent countertop.

I ran the pipes for the vent stack for the kitchen sink. After puzzling over it repeatedly, as I was doing it I figured out how to run it using more of the fittings and pipe I already had on hand. So I returned one riser clamp and $25 worth of fittings, which is always a nice thing. And for good measure, I added a holder bracket for the pipe to the shower in the bathroom that I'd neglected to include back when I redid the shower a couple of years ago.

When I was at Home Depot to return the fittings and pick up a few other things, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better the service has gotten. Maybe they're training them better, maybe they're just afraid of losing their jobs, but whatever the cause, I'm liking the results. It was even quick and painless at the returns desk.

many stringers

I don't have any interesting pictures of the progress on the house to show you (wanna see a bunch of blue boxes nailed to studs?), so I'll include a picture from today's work at Habitat. I once again cut stringers for stairs. That means a lot of very careful identical cuts. "Sloop" John B. is the Americorps member who's been doing this week in and week out in preparation for the upcoming build-a-thon, so once a week isn't so bad. There's a lot to do -- 20 houses * 3 stringers per stair section * 2-3 stories per house adds up.

glacial kitchen progress

Progress on the kitchen has been slow, or at least feels that way. I've been finalizing the layout of the cabinet design and getting estimates. Since the cabinets are major part of the expense as well as the look of the kitchen, and I can't do it myself (without a major learning curve to learn cabinet making, and a lot of time), I'm getting three estimates. I can't blame the weather (which was glacial...there was ice on the bird bath the other morning), though that has kept me away from Habitat for several Fridays. I can't even blame jury duty, since the case settled while they were calling role, so it only took a few hours out of my day.

The first estimate is from Home Depot, which had a very helpful, friendly guy help me finalize some details while he was inputting the cabinet specs into their system. KraftMaid makes nice cabinets, and has taken some green steps, but doesn't specify FSC-certified lumber and would be shipping the cabinets all the way from Ohio. They ship a lot of cabinets, so there's some economy of scale, but still not the best thing.

Another estimate is from a local green home improvement store, EcoHome. They're a great shop, with a huge selection of eco-friendly paints, flooring, cabinets, countertops, etc. We got our bamboo flooring from them, as well as all the paint we've bought in the years since they opened. They have a company make the cabinets locally, using FSC-certified wood and low- and no-VOC finishes. This will definitely be the greenest option, but probably the most expensive.

The final estimate is from a local cabinet shop here in Oakland, H&H Cabinet. They were the last on my list, so the drawings were pretty complete by the time I got to them. They've got a small showroom above their shop which is only staffed some of the time, so the hardest part was getting over there when it was. This may be the cheapest option, but we'll see.

I'm hoping that EcoHome's estimate will be reasonable enough that we can go with it. They're super-knowledgeable, always looking for new and better options, and have done a lot of work figuring out the trade-offs involved in the various options. With the recession, they've been adding more variety to the products they carry. Instead of purely high-end stuff that's as green as possible, they're also carrying some more modest stuff that may not be as green. Regardless of whether we get the cabinets from them, we'll probably get the flooring (probably natural linoleum) and countertops (maybe Paperstone or Vetrazzo; the latter is made locally).

I'm also hoping this will all be reasonable enough that we can splurge a little on some art. We recently went to a local (as in around the corner) open studio. Turns out the house with the funny sculptures in front (a couple doors over from the house that burned a while back) belongs to a local artist who works with copper. Kenneth Griswa does some very high end installs, but also does some more modestly priced work, too. His portfolio includes some boffo copper backsplashes and range hoods as art. They're decorated using a variety of techniques, and are in a word, amazing.

In any event, the basic design of the kitchen is done. It's got the classic work triangle, and despite any limitations imposed by costs, it's going to be 1000% better than our old kitchen. It'll be twice as big, with lots more counter space and storage, and open to the dining room (via a large doorway and half height walls at the counters), so it'll feel even bigger.

Happy People

No, not this happy person, but lots of happy people at, of all places, Home Depot.

While waiting for things to dry out, I've been working slowly on cleaning out and organizing more stuff in the basement to make room to do more work on the electrical. Some of it could probably wait until after the kitchen work, but the outlet for the water heater failed (bad neutral; it was installed by the plumber who installed the tankless water heater a couple years back) and inspired me to move forward with some of the electrical work now. That and if the inspector looks at some the existing wiring, they'd probably stop work right there.

So after placing the new panel and figuring out the runs needed, I headed off today to Home Depot, with visions of conduit and heavy gauge wire running through my head. And despite all the work ahead for the incoming president and congress, despite the ongoing negativity, despite the continuing bad news about the economy, people seemed much more cheerful than I've ever seen in Home Depot before. Maybe it was because I wasn't in the line contractors are usually in, though that was surprisingly short. Maybe they only seemed happier was because I was happier, both because of the election and because I actually found someone to help me. Maybe it was because it was another beautiful day. But regardless of all the whys and wherefores, I actually saw people smile in Home Depot, and that's even more rare than finding an associate to help you when you need it.

Passing the Savings Along to You

I've blogged about the 'joys' of shopping at Home Depot and the like before. To their credit, I actually encountered a friendly, helpful person, who came into the next department to show me where to find something (a faucet for a laundry sink, for my friend Cindy's mom's house; I've been working there the last several days to replace the burst water heater, repair leaky faucets and toilets, fix the new back door that was a replacement for the one kicked in by a SWAT team, etc.) A nice woman in the appliance department at the Oakland Home Depot asked me if I needed any assistance, and I asked about the laundry faucet. She not only told me approximately where to find them amongst the zillions of kitchen and bath faucets, but walked over with me to help find them. All too often questions are met with a surly "that's not my department", so this was a very refreshing change. Of course, since Home Depot's departing CEO got a $210 million severance package, I imagine I'd be a little surly if I were an underpaid, undertrained employee there, too. $210 million for not doing your job? That's the kind of job I want to get fired from.

Anyways, at a different home improvement store yesterday I bought a 10' piece of copper pipe to finish up the aforementioned water heater install. The sticker with the barcode was damaged, so the cashier had to go look at the display to get the price. She came back and quoted what I think was the right price (for copper pipe these days, a 10' section of 1/2" pipe is hecka expensive, whether for type L or the slightly thinner type M). Then said such-and-such per foot (which would be a higher total for 10 feet than what she'd just quoted). She rang things up, and Katarina noticed the grand total and said, "that doesn't seem like enough" (for either amount the cashier quoted), and the woman said "well, if you want me to charge you more...". She was in a hurry (more customers in line behind us), and seemed nervous and kind of jittery, so we left it at that. Later I looked more carefully at the receipt, I think she charged the higher price per foot, but for only one foot of it. I'll be passing the savings along to Cindy's mom, because the difference isn't worth a separate trip back to the other store.

If Home Depot, et al, would spend a little of the absurd amounts paid to execs and spread it around in more more training and more pay for their employees, they'd doubtless have better employee retention, not to mention happier employees and happier customers. I just ask for the opportunity to try this plan once, then whether it works or not, it's OK to fire me, with say, 20% of the former CEO's severance package.

Truth in Advertising?

I returned to Home Depot today after my biweekly trip to the Red Cross for apheresis. And I now have proof that customer service is a foreign concept there. I went to the services desk (my other choices being a regular register, the returns desk, or contractor services). I first asked how I should handle the unpaid-for item (take another up to the register, which is what I figured.) I then said I'd like to make a complaint. After listening to me, the woman said "well, they have to restock." I repeated the part about "but they don't need to make part of the store inaccessible for 45 minutes or more to do it." Ponder. "There's an 800 customer service number. I'll write it down for you." Uh-huh. I guess they don't have any customer service here.

Taking another service panel to a register caused some confusion. I explained about it not being scanned yesterday, the security guard not noticing (a 2 square foot cardboard box?!?) and that I wanted to pay for it. OK. Scan the UPC, swipe the credit card, fail to check ID (whoops!) to make sure I was the owner of the card, and I'm out of there, right? "Don't forget your item!" Huh? I thought at first she was joking. So I explained again, finishing with "I got one yesterday, but they didn't charge for it. This balances things. Thanks!" I still think she thought I was from another planet or something.

Maybe the honesty was disorienting. Given the state of things in Washington, D.C., and corporate boardrooms around the world, I can understand that confusion. The whole thing made me think of the movie Paper Moon, where Ryan O'Neal runs a little scam swapping ones and fives and tens with a rapid patter about getting change and ending up with more money than he started. Tatum O'Neal catches on quickly and does the same thing herself when given a chance. Great movie, by the way. If you've got Netflix (which does have good customer service, in my experience), add it to your queue. And no, while I could have, I did not bring home the second breaker panel.

The good news is I finally found out where they have breakers on display and for sale in the store. At the newly constructed merchandise pickup window near the registers. Oh, there are a few attached to a display back near the breaker panels (and behind a sign, so you have to be 20 feet back to see them) where you might expect to find them, but the rest are mysteriously at the pickup window at the front of the store. If there's a sign indicating that back in the electrical section, it's well-hidden, too.

Arrrgh!

I dropped Kat off at the MacArthur BART station this morning, and headed over to Home Depot for one of my frequent visits. I have, how shall I put it, "limited expectations" for shopping at Home Depot. Large stores; relatively few employees with limited training and expertise (and not that well paid to boot); the demands of a board of directors and shareholders that comes with being a public company to keep costs down and keep profitability as high as possible. It all adds up to limited expectations. I've done a lot of my buying at Economy Lumber (most of the framing materials) and Piedmont Lumber (drywall, house wrap, etc.), but for plumbing, electrical, and various tools, Home Depot is frequently the best bet for combination of selection and low price.

So I've been to various SF Bay Area Home Depots a lot. I'm used to searches for the right sized cart for whatever I need to get that trip (note to corporate HQ: the Home Depot in Pleasanton has all the carts). I'm used to no help available if I need it (I've even been asked for help by other people shopping there, and sometimes know more about the products they have than some of the employees). I'm used to waiting in the checkout line. I haven't always been, but these days I'm a fairly patient person.

But today they found a new way to lower my expectations further and severely test my patience. The main item I wanted to get today was a shower drain. As part of the rough plumbing inspection, I need to have the shower pan completed and the drain installed. So I was perusing the options available in one of the plumbing aisles and an employee told me they needed to close the aisle to bring a forklift in. As I was going to be a while deciding, I figured I could wait 5 minutes and come back.

I came back in 5 minutes. Still closed. I perused the kitchen cabinets and came back. Still closed. I perused the shower heads and handles available and came back. Still closed. I waited for a bit with some others, figuring they'd have to be done soon, or at least take a break for customers to get to the products in that aisle, but no luck. I perused the tile saws (between the shower, bathroom floor, thermal mass for solar, and probably the kitchen, there will be a lot of tile in the addition and remodel, though area-wise most of the flooring will be bamboo) and came back. Still closed. I watched (and listened to; and I quote: "$#!*@%!!") other customers leave. I watched another customer go in and get what they needed while the forklift was making another run down to the end of the aisle.

I finally gave up, and the next time the forklift was gone, I went in to get what I needed. An employee made a dismissive gesture, and I almost lost it. I pointed out that I'd been there all morning, and he said "so have I!" (um, yeah, but you, well, work here). His co-worker recognized my simmering anger and let me get what I needed. I was almost ready to sit down in the aisle and ask to talk to the manager.

I understand they need to restock the shelves or get a large item, and that means closing an aisle temporarily. But God help any pros who are in buying stuff all the time, and get stuck waiting to get to the plumbing aisle. Or anybody who expected to run in and get an item or two in 15 minutes or less.

To keep things interesting, I got in a line near the end of the aisle; it looked about the same as the line at any of the other aisles. Turns out it was a new cashier. I mean new. I was her second customer, and her sort-of-trainer had some problem with the first register she was at, and moved her to another. So checkout didn't go particularly quickly, especially since her sort-of-trainer got her signed in to the new register and then promptly disappeared. I didn't mind that part, though. It certainly wasn't this woman's fault that she'd been given almost no training and set adrift to fend for herself. But it did add a certain je ne sais quoi to the experience.

Apparently my low expectations aren't unique. There's even a website, www.homedepotsucks.com. A lot of that site is about their policies regarding some of the wood they sell (i.e., old growth, rain forest species, etc.), but a quick Google search on that lovely phrase turns up 677,000 hits. Eek! I imagine most large corporations have a www.theirnamesucks.com or the like these days -- it's far too cheap and easy for people to create a website and register a domain name, and that includes people with a grudge (In case you're wondering, www.theirnamesucks.com isn't registered, nor the obvious misspelling, www.thiernamesucks.com)

The final straw was when I got home. It was two hours since I'd left home with Kat, and I looked at the receipt for an exchange item from the beginning of the morning (I decided to get a larger electrical panel, since code means I'll have at least 8 circuits in the new sub-panel) to see just how long I'd waited in the plumbing aisle. It was 48 minutes. But (drumroll please!) ... I noticed the new cashier hadn't included the new electrical panel in the total. I may have inadvertently helped with that, as she'd gotten stuck on one screen during the checkout, and I helpfully got her out of it. And at the Emeryville and Oakland Home Depots, they have security guards to check your receipt against what you carry out the door, and they didn't notice the large cardboard box in my cart that wasn't listed on the receipt. Those of you who know me probably are realizing that as tempting as it was to just say nothing, the mistake meant a return trip to Home Depot to straighten it out.

I couldn't face it today. So I had lunch with my good friend Jim "Grampa" Kirkpatrick at Pyramid Brewhouse ('I liked the beer so much, I bought the company!' Well, a small part of it in the form of stock) and went and bought some new XLR microphone cables for church from my friend Paul (no, not in the diamond business, he's in the sound business), and got nothing done on the house today. I'll straighten out the mess tomorrow after my apheresis donation at the Red Cross. But thanks Jim and Paul, for listening to me vent and reminding me there's more important stuff in life than worrying about an experience like this. And thank God for beer.

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." -- Benjamin Franklin.

Yo Vivo En Home Depot

Monday I worked with Edis and we installed some joists and cleaned up the old stairwell that will be beneath the entry and dining room. It was nice to have him for the clean up (lots of hauling), but I'm not sure it was a net gain hanging joists with him.

Tuesday I worked alone, and spent much of the day picking up some double-wide joist hangers and then getting plumbing supplies at Home Depot. Net result, not that much done on the house itself.

Today I worked alone again, and got a lot done. All the joists hung in the entry and dining room area, a couple more in the bedroom, and I got a good start on the framing where the stairs and pocket door to the bedroom will go. But I needed to make another Home Depot run in the middle. Doh! But all in all, a very productive day.

Right now I'm at Resurrection for the worship team practice. I don't usually make it to practice because it's a bit of drive here and back, but this weekend we're putting on a song fest, "Sweets of the Soul". A mix of secular and Christian music, good times, and a key component -- desserts! There's a free will offering that will go to Hurricane Katrina relief. Probably Habitat for Humanity and their "Operation Home Delivery", which will have affiliates around the country pre-framing houses and shipping them in containers down to New Orleans and Mississippi.