I hate the plumber!

I started the day by calling the plumber, who has been dodging me. He is refusing to make a correction to work he did that didn't pass inspection. I had him move a gas line, and he put the wrong size pipe in. There are calculations plumbers do to properly size pipes. The size of the pipe determines how much gas it can carry, and the pipe needs to be bigger for higher BTU appliances or long pipe runs. So, the plumber made a mistake and is refusing to fix it. His rational is that the inspector is incompetent and that the pipe size is right. I said if this is true, get me calculations to prove it and I'll take them to the inspector. I spoke to him Friday morning and he said he'd call by the end of the day. He didn't. He did the same thing today. How annoying!

I spent most of today (7 hours!) going through the mail and paying bills. I've been so busy lately that everything has slipped - cleaning, bills, laundry, food shopping, exercise, etc. I couldn't believe the mail had piled up so quickly! Part of the problem is that now that we're homeowners, we get an inch of mail almost every day and most of it is junk. Due to identity theft, I actually take the time to shred anything with a name on it and I think that's what takes a while.

The contractors cleaned and degreased the kitchen in anticipation for painting. It was really gross, and I had no idea how bad it was until the first swipe of cleaner was done. The white streak in this picture going from the upper left toward the center is from the cleaner. The rest of the brown, greasy color is just nastly film and splatters on the ceiling. Yuck!



I watched the contractors put in windows for a while. It is really interesting. This black paper is called "bituminous membrane" and helps to seal water out. It is sticky and gooey on the side that is stuck to the house and it self-seals when you nail through it.




This is what the membrane and raw window opening look like from the outside.