A little more plumbing, HVAC hardware.

   I guess I did find a little time to swing by the property after hitting up a couple plumbing places to try to finalize our plumbing selections for in wall roughs (showers and bath mixers).  We decided to go with Hansgrohe on all the bathrooms except for the master so for now that's enough information for the plumbing installers since Hansgrohe has a universal mixer for almost their entire line.  This will give us a little more time to decide on the trim for each bathroom.  We've narrowed down the tub insert selection for the two upstairs bathrooms to the cast iron Kohler Bellwether.  They both have an integrated apron front and left hand drains so that makes the decision easy.  One complaint is that they're a little shallow for bathing, but since those will be kids rooms, it's fine.  I'm not expecting them to take long deep soaks and the shallower depth (11") will make ingress/egress easier because of the lower step-over height (14-7/8").  The guest room and mudroom bathrooms will have a shower so no tub decision there.  We still have to finalize the master bathroom decisions, but we're looking at some Dronbracht designs.
   Some more limitations have reared their ugly head and our initial master tub selection might be the victim this time.  We thought we landed on an MTI Alissa but it looks like it might be too difficult to get the center drain to work in our bathroom configuration.  We're going to use the shower divider wall to house the tub filler and have about thirteen inches of play to dodge floor beams so getting the filler distance to match up with the center drain might not work out.  Of course, any limitation is just a challenge to find a way around so we quickly found an alternative in the MTI Olivia 2.  It has an end drain and nearly the same dimensions, only difference being the construction material.  The former is a solid surface stone matrix material and the later is an acrylic.  Surprisingly, the price between the two are very similar.

   It looks like the plumbers got a chance to come in last Friday because there was some more work on the their front.  Nothing is connected in the basement yet, but it looks like there's still some work to be done on the floor penetrations before they start the long runs to the basement.  This is the ceiling of dining room going into the garage storage room.  The storage room is unconditioned, but inside the envelop of the house, so it will never reach freezing temperatures.  This makes it a perfect location for unsightly plumbing runs.  It's the same location for the laundry room drains and I'm perfectly fine with it.

   Here's the pl;plumbing for the second bedroom on the second floor and the fixes that were made to make the guest bathroom better looking.  They had the cold water supply attached to the underside of the 2x6 nailer which would have impinged upon the drywall.  Mike had them move it into the ICF and go through the nailer since it's not structural.  We'll still have to box down in the shower area here but that's an acceptable solution.  I wonder if the PEX lines need nail shields.  I would hate to have a drywall screw penetrate a line somewhere.

   They found a good place to penetrate the floor for the powder room toilet and completed roughs for the water supplies for the toilet and faucet.  I didn't see a faucet drain yet but since we're planning for a floating or open vanity in here, I think the drain will be in the wall, just like the water supplies.  Looking in the basement, there aren't any close drain stacks to this centrally located bathroom, which will make pretty drain routing difficult in the basement.  I was hoping to have as few boxes as possible down there but it looks like that we'll need more than desired.  This one has two options.  Run to the front of the house, under a steel beam, or across the basement theater.  I'd opt for the first choice since I want as much height in the theater as I can get.

   Here's a close up of the PEX attachments/protectors as they come through the metal studs.  They're required for two reason: you want to keep the pipes secured since they can expand and contract a little bit (less than copper).  Sudden water turn on can also vibrate the pipes so these reduce movement.  Second, since the metal stud is a hard edge, you want to protect the pipe from rubbing and wearing through.  With enough expansion cycles over the lifetime of the house, you don't want that pipe to wear through and burst.

   Here's a close look at the PEX fitting connectors on some of the smaller diameter water supplies.  There's a crimp collar that keeps the PEX line connected to the elbow fitting, and this is similar to all the pipes so far.  This type of connection makes it easy for the installers when compared to copper pipes.  No need for a torch and sweating joints.  Just put on a collar, press fit the connector and crimp the collar.

   Here's the master vanity drains that run down a dining room wall to the basement.  Unfortunately the wall sits right on a concrete beam so it had to be routed into this nook space.  Fortunately, the pipe can be hidden by the built-in that's going to occupy this nook.  I think we were planning on having some kind of cabinet base here so this will hidden in the cabinet toe kick.  I think if we had a more involved architect, or an architect that was forward thinking enough to design for mechanical installation, these issue could be considered on paper first.  I'm glad we've gotten away with such little modification so far.  If we can clear plumbing, then the worst is out of the way.  Electrical can be easily routed so we won't have any fitment issues once we reach that stage.  I think the worst of it would be recessed CAN or lighting electrical box installation on the first floor if a beam gets in the way.

   Just a few more pictures of some of the equiment that will be installed by the HVAC installers when the time comes.  Here's the box for the flow controller for the geothermal system.  As far as I can tell, this is a flow center variable speed (FCV) with 2 pumps for 1" GeoLink Connections (GL).  I'm not sure if the pumps are part of the unit itself or if it's just valves for control of the lines and pumps.  I'm leaning towards the later since the pumps should be sizable.

   I'm not sure how long these have been on the site, but Mike and I were talking about the second floor HVAC soft ducts on Thursday and how there's not provision for load balancing the second floor.  There's usually a movable damper in the duct so you can change the air flow velocity individually to each duct.  If a room is too hot or cold, you move the dampener to balance the air flow with the other rooms.  The soft ducts don't have any damper installed, so I think this is the solution to that issue.  Looking up the name online brought me to this site , which shows me that they're inflatable bladder dampers controlled by a unit to pump 1 psi to close off a flex duct.  Pretty interesting solution and I hope that the control unit is easy to access.  They have a hard 1/4" polyethylene tube coming from each damper, and I found spools of additional tubing so I hope they'll be run to a convenient location since this is something that might need to be performed twice a year.

   Here's the filter unit that will be going on the heat exchanger.  It's just a thick static 2" air filter that replaces the existing 1" filter.  The users manual states that it should be changed once a year so that's less frequency than the 1" filters recommended every 4 months.  It's supposed to have an 11 MERV rating, which should be good for our purposes.  Ic could replace the filter with a MERV 13 filter which can filter down to bacteria and tobacco smoke, but I'll wait to see if it's necessary.  The MERV 11 filters are about $40 per and the MERV 13 filters are just about the same cost, so there's no real reason to not go for the MERV 13.

   I just got these pictures from Mike today.  They took down the scaffolding around the great room.  The electrical, drywall, and carpenters will have their own movable scaffolding so it won't be necessary and it will eventually get in the way so out it goes.  I haven't been able to visit the site yet, but I'll take better pictures when I do.  I imagine it will feel completely different now that it's gone.  We've never known the great room without it since Matt erected it over a year ago to aid in building the upper great room walls.  I'm a little sad I won't be able to walk up to those windows anymore, but we'll be able to get a better feel of the space now that it's gone.

   So that's it for this week.  The electricians should be starting this week, installing lights in the porch so we can get it closed up.  Progress should continue on both the HVAC and plumbing side so there should be something new to look at next week.  Our immediate tasks are to finalize our selection on the plumbing fixtures and determine the location of outdoor sockets.