Final Electrical Inspection Passed

   After a brief thaw of 50F during the week with a good amount of rain, winter returned to freeze all the precipitation into a dangerous icy sheet.  The once cleared driveway is now a treacherous sheet of ice under a crunchy layer of snow.  Mike called someone out to plow the snow off, but it didn't look like they could penetrate the ice.  Temperatures are dipping down into the single digits at night and barely breaking double digits during the day so salt is useless.  Despite the ice and cold, progress continues in the house as we push towards the finale.  The first step of the final four steps has been completed, a passing final electrical inspection.  Next week will be the plumbing and HVAC final inspection.  After all the touch ups and installations are completed will be the final building inspection after which we'll obtain our COO and can move in.  It's getting real folks.

   Nothing is sweeter in the house building business than those lovely green stickers.  Previous rough inspection stickers were just put on the sliding door glass, but this one was placed on the EV charging panel.  There are three panels in the basement so I'm not sure why they decided to put it on that one, but I'm happy it's there.  The electricians got the EV charging circuits installed so I called DTE to have the PEV meter installed.  That will happen on the 22nd.

   Here are the two circuits in the EV panel.  The top double breaker is 80 amps and powers the dedicated Tesla wall charger.  The lower is a 50 amp circuit and is connected to the NEMA 14-50 socket in the garage.  It can be used to power a welder, or any other car charger.  The 80A on the Tesla charger means that with an expected 10% drop, I'll be getting 72A at the plug, which is exactly what my car can charge at outside of the Superchargers.  The 50A is similar to what I have currently and charges at 40A in my car.

   Here's the installed NEMA 14-50 socket in the garage.  There a local cutoff switch but it's not as convenient as a throw switch.  I won't be using this on a daily basis for charging, but we have the option to use it if we ever get a second electric vehicle.

   Here's the dedicated Tesla wall charger that I'll be primarily charging on.  I'll have to get some cable management installed since I won't always be using the full length of the charging cable unless I back into the garage.  With the circuit at 80A, I'll get 40 miles of charge per hour so my daily commute should charge in one and a half hours.  I did specify a 100A circuit and Mike confirmed that the wire installed can handle 100A so we'll have the electrician swap out the breaker for a higher amperage, which will net me about 45 miles per hour of charge.

   The singular dome light was installed above the rear garage door.  It had to be lower profile than the other LED shop lights because of the garage door clearance.  Looking from the ground, it doesn't seem like there would be an issue with ceiling clearance, but Mike said the LED shop lights installed around the rest of the garage couldn't fit in the space between the door and ceiling when it was open.  There's more than enough light, but the dome will help illuminate the space a little bit more.

   This metal vent was sitting on the board that's blocking the heat duct in the foyer.  The tile for the foyer has arrived so we should be expecting the tile installers to come in one more time to finish grouting the back splashes and install the foyer tile.  There's still some design decision needed in the foyer.  We're pretty sure we want the interface between the foyer and rotunda to match the curve of the rotunda, but Mike was trying to convince us to make the interface straight.  Straight makes some sense, since the transitions between the office and dining room to foyer is straight.  Unfortunately, there isn't a straight line across the rotunda, so the tiles will need to be cut to make the pattern square.  A curve will automatically take up that correction.  That will be decided this week.

   The electricians reinstalled the foyer sconces after finally getting them repaired from the manufacturer, and after replacing the glass that the painters broke.  Unfortunately, one of the sconces was returned without the chrome metal stem.  They also installed the hanging light in the barrel vault on the front porch, but I forgot to take a picture of that.  All the worry about the height of the light was for naught as we don't have any friends that would ever bump their heads on the light.

      The pucks in all the art alcoves are connected to the Control4 system and functioning.  We've had some issue with the installation of these pucks.  We were hoping that they could be installed more flush, or recessed into the box a bit.  We had to have the electricians adjust them because the installation hole was put on the front of the installation.  Also they're not perfectly flush against the box ceiling so they don't look great.  I'm hoping it will be fixable.

   A few pieces of walnut quarter round is being stored in the great room.  I think these will be used for the shoe molding around the kitchen island and butlers pantry cabinets so they match the cabinet materials.  There isn't a lot and those are the only two areas where walnut cabinets touch the floor.  Distinctive designs is hard at work installing the remaining shoe molding around the house.

   The wood vents were installed on the first floor in all the floor vent locations.  We've had these stashed away somewhere, but they were in the raw wood form.  Now they're stained to match the wood floor color and secured in place.  The first floor is the only level with in-floor vents since the second floor and basement have in ceiling ducts.  The vents don't seem to impede the air flow much and they're not closeable, which isn't a good idea anyways.

   The remainder of the hardware has finally been delivered to the house so we'll finally get the full hardware implementation.  We were missing handles in the master bathroom, guest bathroom, and some in the kitchen.  These are the handles being installed in the guest bathroom.  I couldn't remember what handles we chose for this room, but the probable reason why they were delayed was because we wanted the two-tone look to match the floor tile.  They're a clean and simple handle, and will look nice in this bathroom.

   The stainless steel panels were finally installed on the fridge and freezer columns this week.  They're still protected with a black sheet of plastic, but cut outs were made to fit the handles and other access points.  One of the panels arrived damaged, but since the installers that Mike hired to set the appliances are Wolf/Viking certified installers, they could quickly obtain a replacement and warranty their installation.  I'm not sure if it's up to us to remove the film or if Mike will remove it when there's no more risk of damage.  I wouldn't mind removing all the film.  The fridge and freezer are currently operational, but turned off.  I haven't tried running the filtered water but I'm assuming both the water and icemaker are hooked up properly.

   The electricians finished installing the wall receptacle plates in the kitchen.  We went with a white plate that was devoid of any face screws for a cleaner look.  We have sockets installed at a good interval so we shouldn't have any issue with power.  We considered installing power strip under cabinet things, but decided against them.  They may seem convenient because you can install power where ever you want and aesthetically they get rid of the plates on the walls, but we didn't like the idea of having to bend down to look under the cabinet just to plug something in.  We're not planning on having anything permanent plugged in and sitting on the counter top so the number of plugs we have installed should be just fine for us.

   To be installed next week, the air switch for the garbage disposal is sitting near the sink.  PMP stone is supposed to come back this week to drill the hole this switch will be installed in.  It's an air switch because pressing the button pushes air in a tube connected to the electrical controller for the garbage disposal.  I'm not sure why this needs to be an air switch, but I suspect it has to do with electrical switches in the surface of a wet location.

   Other electrical installations were completed in the kitchen.  This plug was installed at the end of the kitchen island, closest to the sink.  The microwave drawer in the island is the only thing that will be plugged into this and it's fairly inaccessible and not convenient to plug anything else into.  I'll have to take a look at the breaker panel in the basement to see if this is also tied into the island receptacle on the other side of the island and I suspect they are.  A microwave doesn't pull enough current to warrant it's own breaker.

  Now that the microwave drawer plug is installed, the microwave drawer finally has power.  We've never had a drawer style microwave so it will be interesting to see if it's more or less convenient to put things in from above rather than take them out from the front.  The drawer opening and closing is powered, actuated with a touch surface press.  All buttons are on the front, so there is a small element of bending over a bit to read the buttons but the timer is pretty clearly visible from the standing position.  We don't generally use all the built in cooking features in our current microwave, so I'm not sure how useful these features will be in the new one.  There's no turntable in drawer units, and generally there isn't a need for it.  In counter top microwaves, the magnetron is located in the side of the microwave and the normal wavelength for the microwave is about 5 inches.  That means that across a standard plate, the amount of energy imparted varies within 5 inch increments, which is why you can have hot and cold spots in dish cooked in a microwave.  A turntable will rotate the dish moving the food in and out of these varying locations, allowing the energy to be imparted more evenly.  The magnetron in drawer style microwaves is located in the top, pointing down.  This means that, unless the food you're heating is greater than 5 inches deep, you'll get a fairly consistent heating across the width of the dish, and more variation from top to bottom.  Since food on a dish is relatively thin, there's less variation in temperature across the cross section.  Sorry for the science deviation.  The drawer opens fully in about 3-4 seconds which seems slow enough to not spill soup.  I think it will be pretty convenient.

   The bottom hinge plates of the swinging pantry doors were masked and painted.  There was a can of black paint in the pantry that was probably used on the hinges that were previously silver.  I'm fine with this addition and wouldn't have been offended by either color.  It would have been easier to paint the hinge plates before installing them, but it was some kind of last minute design decision.

   An unexpected design change again.  The electricians replaced the LED puck lights that were installed in the upper butlers pantry cabinets with the LED under cabinet strip lights installed in other locations.  I'm not sure why these were changed, but we're not sure we like how it looks.  There might have been some voltage issues that prevented it from lighting properly, but we were not notified about the change.  They're installed in a very visible location in the middle of the cabinet and while they provide good, even light, they're kind of distracting.  I think a better implementation might have been closer to the doors so you don't see the light, and maybe make it shine back into the cabinet for more indirect lighting.  I'll have to see what we can change.

   Moving upstairs, Distinctive Designs has started installing the shoe molding on the wood floor.  They've already finished the installation in the master bedroom and have plenty of pre-painted molding the basement ready to install.  There's less to install on the second floor since we don't have a space above the great room, so installation of this should happen quickly, if the wood floor installers can every finish.  There was no progress on the wood floor installation this week and they still have the turret bedroom left to finish.  Apparently, after needed to order 300 square feet more of flooring, much of the delivery was ordered from the wrong dye lot and had to be returned.  I'm not sure who's error it was, but I'm hoping it will be resolved quickly and we can get past this bottle neck.

   The triangular piece of tempered glass railing was also delivered and installed this week, completing the railing installation everywhere around the house.  This piece was previously measured or cut incorrectly and had to be replaced.  I'm happy with the outcome here and really glad we spent the extra money to get glass railing on the master balcony.  The view is so much better with glass, especially since it will allow better view from the seated position, which I plan on being in for the majority of my time on the balcony.

   Here's the piece of wood that will be used for a flooring transition between the master bedroom and bathroom.  It's wider than the piece used between the master bathroom and closet, which allows for a nicer foot feel.  It will be stained to match the floor and won't be covered by the door when it's closed.  I'm okay with this implementation and the difference between the closet and bedroom doesn't bother me.

   Waiting installation is the replacement shower heads for the second floor bathrooms.  We replaced the square shower heads after trying them out because they're too much like a rain shower with a low flow and we wanted something with a a higher stream.  The plumber will be back this week to install four shower heads on the second floor.  I don't think there's anything else left for them to do in the house so we're all set for the plumbing inspection.

   A minor note, the switch plate in the master closet was installed, but still needs to be painted to color match to the walls.  It looked like this location was going to be too tight to fit a plate, but they either installed a narrower plate or the install was better fitting than expected because there it is.

   The washer and dryer were hooked up and set in place last week.  There was some water in the washer, so it looks like they run through a cycle to test the connections.  I didn't run the machines, but I did power them up and play with the controls.  They look like they're going to be nice machines and are easy to use.  One snag, the latch on the dryer pedestal is broken and needs to be swapped out.  They open with a push and the broken one isn't latching at all.  Mike would have preferred a new latch, but Witbeck is sending a whole pedestal as a replacement.  It's probably easier to send a whole unit then to order a single part.

   The backsplash tile for the turret bathroom has finally arrived and is waiting to be installed.  We have a meeting on Thursday with Castro, the tile installer, to go over the foyer tile layout so I'm assuming that's when they'll be in to install this tile and grout the other backsplashes.  Mike had to actually go online and hunt this tile down since they discontinued it.  The sheets will probably be cut in half for the actual backsplash height and will be topped with a frosted pencil glass tile.  When this and the foyer gets installed, we'll be done with all the tile installation.

   Well, that's about it for this week.  Next week should see more Control4 programming, hopefully more wood floor installation, most likely more progress on the shoe molding and touch ups around the house, and probably more tile installation.   If we pass the final HVAC and plumbing inspections schedule for this week, the last inspection to be performed will be the final building inspection and we can finally get a COO and move in!  Just because we have a COO doesn't mean all the touch ups and floor finishing will be completed, so we'll have to wait for that to be completed, but at least there's no more red tape to cut before the house is ours.  It won't be long now!