Home renovation project

We had granite countertops installed in the kitchen, first floor bath, and laundry room. Enough granite remains so that we will also have a second floor bath done later this coming week.

The contractor's bid was for demolition and granite countertop installation so I took it upon myself to install the new faucets, do the sink drain hookups and electrical work. My area has hard water, and I needed to replace all of the water supply valves.

Several years ago I had bought a cheap puller to remove the compression sleeve used on copper pipe. This is sold at Home Depot and Lowes for around $20; this puller is close to worthless and I do not recommend this tool. See first picture, right side.

I found a good plumbing store and bought the puller shown on the left side of the first picture. This cost <$40, and does a great job. I suggest spraying WD-40 on the copper pipe first so that the copper ferrule will more easily slide off the pipe.

I had to cut some of the PVC drain pipes and used a Dremel tool for that, this makes very quick work of that task.

We had a new gas cooktop and downdraft vent installed in the kitchen island. The installers used a huge saw to cut away some of the floor in the island because the ducting had to be modified. I covered up the jagged hole with Masonite board so that things wouldn't fall into the hole. See the second photo.

Had I anticipated the need for this sawing, I would have suggested using my jig saw to cut away the floor, instead of the installer's huge saw with a 2-1/2 foot long blade. That saw looked like something you would use to cut down a big tree...

I also had to move the AC outlet box as the original (see photo of rusty box) got in the way of the new downdraft duct, so I got to learn how to work with flexible aluminum conduit. The new box has an extension on it because I couldn't get four cables and the outlet to all fit into the space provided by one box.

The last few photos show the completed work.

 

Thanks - Fred's House of Politics is the site for political discussions. FHOPancakes is the catchall for miscellaneous ramblings.

The downdraft vent is made by Broan, model 273603. 500 cfm blower, when you set this on full speed it sounds like an airplane ready to take off. It is very effective, we cooked bacon yesterday and after we were done there's not much smell of bacon around.
Product Detail

The vent has a 10" rectangular opening that can be adjusted to either vent at the bottom as was the case with my installation; or to the left; or to the right. You can also shift the vent several inches by sliding the box containing the motor laterally.

The gas cooktop is a 5-burner GE Profile, which Consumer Reports rated very highly.
http://products.geappliances.com/ApplProducts/Dispatcher?REQUEST=SPECPAGE&SKU=JGP975SEKSS&SITEID=GEA

 

The ducting goes under the floor, then rises up the wall and vents a couple of feet above ground.

Thanks, Tom. Dark granite patterns have been popular in the past. We like lighter colors and this matches the kitchen cabinets and the light tile floor.

The granite is called Juparana Colonial and a closeup can be found here. It has little silver specks (not visible in the photo) which make it very interesting to look at:
EarthStones Granite and Marble - Gallery

 

Hi Ken,

The old box was mounted on the island floor at the rear of the cabinet. The new box is mounted on the island floor on the right side of the cabinet (as viewed with the cabinet doors open.) There's no water pipe plumbing in the cabinet, so no reason for any water pooling to occur there. The island floor is raised up five inches compared to the kitchen floor.

All of the electric outlets near the kitchen sink that are intended for general use are protected by GFCI, but the two outlets within the island dedicated to the cooktop and downdraft vent are not. Also, the two outlets below the kitchen sink dedicated to the dishwasher and disposal are not protected.

 

Yes, this is how my home is set up. Each bathroom has a GFCI outlet and other outlets are protected by that. The kitchen also has a GFCI outlet that protects the adjacent outlets near the sink. The AC outlets mounted to the exterior of the house have individual GFCI.

 

The total cost was < $12K:

$7.7K for the granite, demolition and installation in the kitchen, two bathrooms, and laundry room. 150 sq. feet of countertop space was done so the price was ~$51 per square foot, a very good price considering the granite quality.
$2K for the stainless steel GE Profile 5-burner cooktop and Broan downdraft vent
$1.3K for two stainless steel sinks for the kitchen & laundry room, three porcelain sinks for the two bathrooms, and bathroom and kitchen faucets. I reinstalled the previously installed kitchen faucet in the laundry room as it was made by KWC, a Swiss brand, and in excellent condition.
$0.2K for installation of the cooktop and downdraft vent
$0.2K for a plumber to help me with a difficult supply valve installation where the copper pipe was deformed; while he was here I had him do five supply valves in the kitchen and laundry room. I did the six supply valves in the bathrooms and all of the faucet and drain hookups.
$0.2K for flexible stainless steel water supply hoses, supply valves, electrical conduit wiring supplies, a few PVC drain pipes needed since the bathroom sink drains were in a different position compared to original, a 2 ft. long natural gas flexible supply hose, a metal duct converting 10" rectangular to 6" round, and miscellaneous.

Regarding the vent fan noise, it is at an acceptable level. The vent enclosure is mounted at four points to the cabinet. It has two mounting brackets at the bottom of the cabinet, and two brackets at the top which screw into the plywood below the granite. Of course it also is attached to the duct work that exits under the floor.

What I really liked about the contractor was that everything was done on schedule, and the schedule was very short - so the house was not in disarray for an extended period. The first floor demolition happened on a Monday and the granite was installed the following Monday. It would have been scheduled for the prior Saturday except I wasn't sure that the cooktop and vent would be delivered on time. The second floor bathroom demolition happened this past Monday and the granite was installed Tuesday. I completed the plumbing work this morning (had to buy a drain pipe extension from Lowes for one of the sink drains) and the entire job is now done.

My wife invited three contractors to bid. One ended up not bidding. Of the two that bid, one was much higher than the other. We were comfortable accepting the lower bid because we had seen other granite countertop work done by that contractor in our neighborhood.

 

Thanks, this happened one year ago, and we did this work in prep for selling our Orange County home. That transaction closed in July 2009 and we moved to southern AZ.

In retrospect, looking at those pictures one year later, its hard to believe my wife & I went through all that work... We are very glad to be out of OC now.