Floor Replacement - Day #2

 Wow... what a day!  I expected it to be a good day with my electrician, Bill Stewart of Stew's Electric, coming in to set up a dedicated line for the dishwasher to be installed tomorrow.  We had found that if the dishwasher was running and Kate ran the microwave to heat up tea water. the breaker in the electric panel would flip.  Since we are having the kitchen work done and new appliances installed, it just made sense to run a dedicated line for the dishwasher so we do not have to worry about what is running.

I was also supposed to start making a call at noon to try to get an appointment to get my COVID-19 vaccine.  Alaska has determined that "seniors" over the age of 65 years will be in the second tier of vaccines given.

I was also watching the process that was happening in Washington, DC for the counting of the Electoral College votes in Congress.

While waiting for the electrician to arrive and watching the crazy 'Objections' to the election I saw the terrible discourse that was being played out in the two houses of Congress... I turned it off as it was more of the same that has been done over the last weeks since the election.  Then Bill arrived and got started with his job and I tuned back in to find the President doing his rhetoric asking the folks at the rally on the Elipse in Washington, DC to head down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol... and everything went downhill from there.

I felt like I was not believing what I was seeing and yet unable to turn away.  In my lifetime I can only remember a few times when that has happened.  JFK assassinated, Bobby Kennedy killed, Martin Luther King shot on the balcony of his hotel, the Challenger explosion, 9-11... and now, the riot in the Capitol Building today as Congress began counting the Electoral College votes.  Sad, sad day in the United States.

I was so stunned that I forgot that there was a noonday start to trying to get an appointment for my COVID-19 vaccine.  I stopped watching, once I realized the time and started working on the links in the bulletins from the Alaska State government.  I followed the links to determine my eligibility and then went to another spot to get a listing of the clinics I could contact.  I put in my zip code and got no clinics listed.

I knew that both Safeway and Fred Meyers in my area had been listed on another site.  I tried to find a number to call or a website to use to get an appointment.  I finally got a number for Fred's and spoke to a lovely young man in the pharmacy area.  We chatted and he admitted that from what he could tell from the calls they had gotten today that the rollout of the vaccine appointments had not been very well thought out.  Fred Meyers was only having their clinics on Saturdays and all of their clinic appointments were already full with a large waiting list.  But he said I should use just the regular Fairbanks zip code instead of the one I actually live in.  And sure enough, once I did that I had more options.

So I started calling the numbers that were provided.  A couple of them were not in service!  Hmmmmmmmm!!!  The ones that did work had me in a holding pattern for many, many minutes before disconnecting me.  And when it finally did get to a desk, it was an answering machine for the OB/GYN nurse!!!

I tried but failed.  However, I see my doctor for a checkup on Monday.  I will talk to her about what steps I need to take to get my vaccine.  It will happen.  I may just need to be a bit more patient.  And keep socially distanced until that time...

In the meantime, the remodel of the kitchen floor continues.

Yesterday, Eric took out the second floor.  You saw the picture of him with the second floor piled up in front of him.  He continued, took the trash out, removed nails from the floor, removed screws from the floor, and scraped the last vestige of the second floor from the original floor.

 

This was the original floor.  And I thought the second floor was really dated.  The hardwood was 3/4 inch thick.  The second floor was glued on top of luan and was 1/2 inch thick.  But this was on the original floor, so now the appliances can come out from under the countertop.

The trash compactor came out easily and quickly.  The dishwasher, not so much.  Thank goodness Eric was careful about moving things and looked before he tugged at things.  

Not the best picture, but this is under the old dishwasher.  Keep in mind that it is 22 years old and probably never been looked under since the day it went in.  Today, most dishwashers are connected to the waterline via a flexible, plastic water line/hose.  This one had been plumbed directly from the copper water pipes into the bottom of the dishwasher.

At this point in the day, Eric declared that he was not a plumber (he had never seen any connection like that in the dishwashers he had removed) and one of the conditions that I had put out was that I not be without water for the 3 days of this construction.  So he calls his boss, Garrett.  Garrett was in North Pole but eventually arrived at my house and between Eric and Garrett, they got the dishwasher out, tried to crimp off the end of the copper tubing, and finally installed a 3/8" shutoff valve that should hookup easily to a plastic line or hose.  (We will see!!)  The funny thing was during the plumbing stuff, as they were applying the shutoff valve, they looked down into the floor through the large hole in the cabinet and saw another shutoff valve under the floor.  There was no access from the lower level ceiling.  We may have to cut into the ceiling and install a panel that would give us access to this valve and the plumbing in the floor upstairs.

This was the waterline as they had attempted to first cap it off.

This was the shutoff valve.  They had to cut the line a tad shorter so it will fit under the new dishwasher.  The old shutoff valve is down inside the hole in the wood.

This was how the old dishwasher had been hardwired into the electric lines.  Yes, they just ran the wires from inside the outlet and then wired it directly into the dishwasher.  This was wrong on so many levels.  Thank goodness Bill was coming in today.

This is the jumble under the sink.  Between waterlines and drain lines, electric wires, garbage disposal, etc., it is quite crowded under the sink.

This was the beginning of Bill's stuff to bring the kitchen up to code.  He laughed when he saw the 'do it yourself 'wiring, but sadly, he has seen it before.

Luckily, we have drop ceilings in the bathroom and laundry downstairs.  This made his job much easier.  He was able to locate the wiring for the Sauna (the room next to the bathroom downstairs), disconnect it from the Sauna where it led back to the electric panel, and then, with the access from the drop ceiling, easily get a new, dedicated line into the kitchen for the dishwasher.  He wired up the outlet that had been behind the old dishwasher to get power to the other outlets down that line and then covered the box with just a plain cover.

This is looking much safer to me.  No open wires or outlets in the back of the dishwasher area.

This is the outlet in the space for the trash compactor.  There was no cover plate on it, so Bill put one on to protect the wries.  I did not get a before picture.

This is a new outlet that was installed to replace the old one for the refrigerator.  The old one wiggled when you touched it in on the wall.

This is the new, dedicated outlet for the dishwasher.  It is now under the sink.  It is a ground fault outlet although Code did not require it to be a ground fault since it is a dedicated line.  But Bill and I are both more comfortable with the ground fault switch.  If we have trouble with it flipping out at all, he will come back and put in a plain outlet.

He cleaned up all of the wires and stuff from up in the kitchen as well as down in the laundry and the bathroom.  He did one last favor for me, he took a very long drill bit and drilled a pilot hole in the ceiling in the lower lever so we can easily locate where the shutoff valve is down under the floor.  That way we can install an access panel in the future.

So, I am ready for the final day (hopefully) tomorrow and end up with a new floor, dishwasher, and trash compactor.  Cannot wait to be able to show you the change... and just to have this over and done with!