Oh, home projects

On the one hand, I'm kind of annoyed at the magnitude of this hood installation for the stove. I'm venting this beast outside because Maria wants it that way. So that the whole house doesn't smell like food. I suppose that's a valid reason. However, it's going to be a huge pain in the ass. On the other hand, I'm actually looking forward to crawling around up in my attic, running duct work and rerouting a bunch of cables. Why? Because I need to prove to myself that I can not only start projects but finish them in a non-half-assed manner.

The hood installation seemed simple enough. Cut hole in wall, run duct, hang hood.

Bought the hood on Friday. First of all, it needs 8" duct. There's not wall-flapper unit that they sell at Home Depot (or Lowe's) so that's a special order item. Need to also buy a few pieces of duct and some tin snips. And of course, duct tape.

So that's that, Then I start reading the directions since I'm wondering how this 35-lb beast is going to hang on drywall. Oh, I see. You have to hack away at the drywall and then add a cross-brace between the 2x4s and hang it on that. Gotcha. Then I measure off where the duct is going to go, making sure to clear the ceiling of the hallway on the backside. I push a screw through the drywall, crawl up into the attic and ... oh, there it is. Behind the insulation, at the bottom ... ok, so it's gotta come up another four inches (bottom of the duct) so it can clear all of these 2xwhatevers holding up the roof. And by the way, I almost drilled into some cables. But at least I know where they are now!

So, the cables need to be rerouted via junction boxes and then into the power outlets below. The larger 220 cable needs to be routed to the garage for that power distribution (yay, I don't have to go through the basement). But then I look again at where the hood will go, make some more measurements, and man, is that duct going to be way up there. I look at the cover for the duct that they supplied. It goes up to cover a duct about 29". My elbow will be located at nearly twice that height. Gads. So then I look online. Is there an extension piece for this thing to make it look all pretty? Of course! It's only $100! Which is like, a third the cost of the hood. I love my wife.

Not to mention that the wall flapper is nearly $50 as well.

So today I must order the wall flapper and maybe tonight I'll crawl around the attic some more and make some electrical tie-ins of sorts. I also think that the extension piece for the duct work probably won't get bought right now. It'll look funny, but that's alright.

This is the last big project. Over the weekend Nick and I put in a bifold door to the laundry room to take care of that issue. Man, is it ever easy to put in a bifold door. Who knew? The hardware doesn't match the others and the door is kind of bowed inward, but hey, that's par for the course.