Day 12 (8-14-08) A sunny day at last!

We're slowly making our way clockwise around the house, replacing windows, sheathing and adding the drain wrap.

The kitchen gets one more little window next week, then the dust and rearranging will move onto the bathroom. There we will remove the window and add a Velux Sun Tunnel and ceiling fan until the bathroom becomes part of the kitchen in phase 2 or 3.

Today was a great day for water conservation. Todd Rafferty cheerfully replaced two multi-gallon toilets (he fixed the one in the basement, so now I have a much shorter commute from my office) with American Standard Champions, and replaced the dripping kitchen faucet. Hooray! When we do the main floor renovations I'll research how Toto is doing with their dual-flush toilets.

Todd said he is game to try a German water pipe system if we can find a supplier and it's within our budget. Here's the scoop:

Aquatherm-greenpipe (formerly Fusiotherm) is a polypropylene pressure piping system, designed for hot and cold potable water and food-grade applications. Combining excellent physical strength with high chemical purity, aquatherm-greenpipe offers quality and performance unmatched by other potable systems and is one of the most environmentally friendly piping systems in the world.

Everybody is on board with cardboard recycling. The toilet packaging will get recycled; I told them to dump it all in the back of my truck and I'll take care of it.