Ummm…
Good day, everyone.
How is everyone holding up out there? Personally, I am finding it difficult to face reality these days. Events are moving so quickly and erratically that I have no time to figure out how to respond to one presidentially induced disaster before the next one arrives. It’s exhausting.
But that’s not what this post is about. I am supposed to fill you in on events in my life, which feels weirder and weirder every single time I break out the laptop to write these things, but ok, moving on.
First up, something I should have mentioned last week: progress on the community association website.
Despite all the chaos with contractors, I’ve put in a lot of hours on the website, working to get rid of the dependency on an editor that I despise. It’s called Elementor, and originally I loved it. Now, however, I am thrilled to report that it’s gone, out of the website entirely. The reasons for getting rid of it are complicated, but include:
- It needs a lot of computer power for it to work well. We run this website on a shoestring, which means a shared server with hundreds of other websites on it. Getting enough CPU time to run all that script code and do those database queries quickly just wasn’t happening. Elementor might be just fine on a dedicated server, or even a virtual server where you’ve got reserved CPU time, but it’s just too slow in the situation we’re in.
- It’s finicky. It provides a lot of control over how a website looks, but there are weird glitches and places where it does unexpected things. I got tired of working around those.
- It requires backups every time they release a major update. Technically, backups are a great thing, and I make them pretty regularly, but I want to do it on my own schedule, not someone else’s. Finding a note every couple of months saying they’ve got an update and I need to back up before applying their code because it’s got changes all over their system only makes me grind my teeth. If they can’t test their software well enough to know it won’t introduce errors into my website, why on earth should I want to use it? (Answer: I don’t!)
So it’s gone now, and that’s half the battle. The other half is a huge, complicated theme called OceanWP. WordPress uses themes to provide colour and style defaults for a website, but they can get a lot more complicated than that. The previous webmaster selected OceanWP for some reason, and it is one of those huge, complicated themes that takes over everything it can.
But here’s the deal: I want to use the new, built-in editor that comes with WordPress, and OceanWP messes with it. I’ve grown tired of that, and with the fact that it’s another huge piece of code, slowing things down even more. OceanWP is the next thing to go, just as soon as I can make that happen.
It’s been a lot of work to get Elementor out of the way, and there are hours and hours of work to do to get rid of OceanWP, but once that’s done, the website will be smaller, faster, and easier to maintain. These are good steps, and I will keep working at them.
For those who wonder, Tinkerbelle remains just fine, barking at everything. We’re three weeks from her next vet check-up, but so far all is well. I expect that will remain the case, but who knows? She’s tried to die twice in her short life.
Oh, but hey, she did turn nine years old on Valentine’s Day, and for a big dog with her crazy medical history, that’s a great thing.
On to the big one: Last week I promised images showing the water lines for the radiators (which are apparently still on a ship coming from Belgium). I took some pictures, but it’s not simple to explain them. I’ll do the best I can.
This first one is of the office downstairs. This will be my space someday, when this is all done. On the wall below the window, you can see a bunch of wires, and below those, two horizontal PEX water pipes. And towards the right side, you can just barely see the stubs sticking out of the wall that will carry water into the radiator and out of it. (The upper pipe is the supply line, and the lower one is the return line.) Note, also, how the water lines go around the corner below the cubby that we exposed and are going to fill with drawers and shelves.
Next up is the library, and here things are pretty similar. The water lines come out of the closet (on the right) and go into my future office (on the left). The radiator will be centered under the windows.
Next is part of the living room, though I know it’s hard to understand. The glass brick on the left side of the photo is part of the entryway. The drywall ends where the boiler room and the garage start on the other side of that wall. You can see the water lines come out of the boiler room and go along the wall, with a stub out for a radiator. Actually, I suppose you have to trust me that the water lines come out of the boiler room. They disappear into the wall there on the left, where they turn towards the boiler.
Here’s a view of the main wall of windows in the living room, with the heating water supply lines and the stubs for two radiators:
Note the old radiator lying on the floor, still. It’s in the way and will have to move soon.
Also note that I didn’t photograph every radiator stub out in every room. They all look similar, and this is pretty strange content already. Repeated photos of PEX pipe with little bits sticking out would be boring, so please bear with me.
Having shared the photos and a bit of context, here’s the story of the latest plumbing inspection.
First, the inspector showed up and was grumpy. The plumber and one of the general contractors were here, and he accused them of not having the plumbing in the concrete inspected. But it was the same guy who had inspected it and signed off on it a few weeks before. He just didn’t remember doing that.
Then he was wondering if we were building a suite or not. I think he was confused by the radiator water lines. They’re not a common thing, and if we had a crawlspace or basement, they would be run under the floor, not in the wall. Eventually he figured out there is no suite, and that we’re not trying to put sinks in every room of the house. (I predicted that the inspector would be confused by the radiator water lines, and I was right.)
Finally he figured out that the plumber was present, and he calmed down and got more rational. But the story doesn’t end there.
There was a concern about the drains for the washer, and laundry sink, but in the end he decided those were OK.
Another issue is that we’re required to have a leak test on the shower. The problem is that requires the shower to be waterproofed, and that can’t be done until the tile guy has had a chance to work his magic. It turns out that the inspector will actually have to fail our inspection for the shower, which will then cause the software to make other inspections possible. And eventually we’ll get him back for the leak test on the waterproofed shower.
And finally, there are all kinds of weird paperwork and forms related to the heating permit that we need to get. The plumber has been trying to get that figured out, and the inspector actually gave him his card and told him to take another few steps and then call him so he can expedite getting it through the system.
It seems like the software the building inspectors use is garbage, full of clunky workarounds to get things done. In addition, our plumbing inspector was making a bunch of assumptions that he shouldn’t have. This is why I don’t want to talk to any inspectors. I would have blown a gasket, and that would just delay things.
Anyway, we did pass on everything he could inspect that morning, and the plan is that the plumber will be back on Monday to make a few tweaks to the radiator water lines and set them up for a pressure test. Then we’ll get it all inspected again. Hopefully we pass everything but the shower water pan test, which means we’ll then be able to get a framing inspection, which is pretty much the last thing we need before we insulate.
But in a twist, some insulation is going in early. The insulation company is here today to fill the void between certain walls with blown-in insulation, and they may put up some bat insulation as well. The contractors assure me they know our framing inspector, and that it won’t be a problem. They can show him or her what is going on as needed. Fingers crossed!
Something I did not include this week is a gratuitous photo of my right eye. You can thank me for that.
Apparently you can bleed a fair bit into the white of your eye without any particular cause, and that has happened to me. It’s quite impressive, but I am assured it will go away over a couple of weeks, and that it can’t interfere with my vision. No one knows what I did to cause this, and the real answer might be “nothing at all.” At the moment I look like I was in a brawl, except that there is no bruising on my face, just the eyeball.
And here’s this week’s amusement: A Canadian brewery is selling the “Presidential Pack.” It’s one beer a day to get you through all of the current regime in Washington. While they have sold out already (twice, I believe), they have a waiting list for any interested parties.
If that sounds good to you, here’s the link and a national news story about it.
That’s it for this time. May all your inspectors be happy, and your tariffs well thought out. Or perhaps not imposed at all.
