We have had the pleasure of several recent guests who have stayed in the new master bedroom and bath. The new curtains have made the space more private and it has proved to be great to have another bathroom with more people in the house. Everyone seems to enjoy the space and the fancy Haiku fan.
My granddaughter took the first bath in the new tub today. She loved it. It is pretty tall and big but she could handle it. I was impressed by how long the water in the tub stayed warm. I left the water in and only had to add a bit more hot to take a bath myself. It has been years since my last bath in the steam spa I installed in the Arizona house! It did not keep water warm like this tub does though. The water was still warm when I drained it.
Unfortunately the sprayer did not work. I may have installed the back flow preventer backwards! I’ll have to take it apart and figure that out. But the shelf came in handy. Not sure if I want to get a tub spanning shelf or build a little storage cabinet to hide shampoo and soap. Always looking for ideas.
First Bath in New Tub
Only small tasks have been accomplished in the last few weeks. Some have been just decorating, arranging, and making space for guest items. Plumbing connections have stayed tight, although the bed railing suffered a little bit from use and had to be reinforced with more nails from the nail gun.
I’ve cleaned up a few more of the track lights that were left hanging from the track during the drywall phase. It seems like so many of them that I just take them a few at a time. I have to take them down, clean the drywall paste and some paint off them and the bulbs, and then be sure they are dry to reassemble.
I was scammed on eBay. I should have known better. I was told the eBay payment did not go through and to cancel and pay another invoice. That happened once before because the user had changed email addresses but the second invoice was also eBay. This time I did not notice it was not through eBay and paid it. So the seller absconded with the money from both eBay and PayPal. I have been asking for a refund but neither company has returned an answer on my request. This is the first time in six years of using eBay regularly so I suppose I just got lax in my due diligence. I’m feeling stupid about it. UPDATE: PayPal honored their online purchase warranty and refunded the total that I paid for the Nest thermostat. So happy with buying with PayPal. I had a return they helped negotiate too and got a refund on that amount. I’m glad I used PayPal.
I was buying another Nest thermostat for the master bedroom. Somewhere I have a couple of expensive Honeywell thermostats but for the life of me I don’t know where. They would have been packed up for drywall and I can’t find them. So with buying the Haiku fan, I thought another Nest to help control the fan would be good. This is the third, so we are only using one of the original programmable Honeywell thermostats now. The Ebay price was good for a third generation thermostat but not great with the extra shipping charge. I wish I had gone for a few more dollars now with shipping included. Although I got a shipped email, it was not tracked and I waited the entire shipping estimate of time before becoming concerned. Then I got an email saying the seller had withdrawn the item and from Ebay. Oh oh. So I went though the eBay stuff about contacting the seller and then Ebay. The problem was that the seller showed my original purchase from eBay as refunded because they charged me directly through PayPal. Ebay says only to pay through them and this is why.
Having no response from the seller, I went to PayPal a few days later and registered there for recompense, but although the case was still pending after their 48 hour limit, eventually PayPal refunded the purchase. So disappointing but of course I am also at fault in this one since paying outside of Ebay is not permitted. I just did not notice.
At any rate I bought another Nest on Ebay and installed it today. I had a bit of trouble getting it to access the modem and had to restart the modem but it finally took. Then the family room thermostat seemed to go off the network and I had to restart it. I found out how by following the directions on the troubleshooting page that I was directed to from the application. It showed online at the thermostat but not in the application.
The weather here has gone from 80-90 degree days to the 40’s. We don’t need heat yet as the house has been staying at about 72 degrees. I also have the ventilation system running full time. I turned off the econocool mode which lets cooler air into the house at night.
I just changed the filters for the new season. The filters are pie shaped and ordered directly from the Ultimate Air company. The wheel that holds the filters does not have to be removed when they are changed. When the metal screens are out the wheel is accessible and I also washed the filter holder from each side with a bit of spray cleaner and a rag.
ERV Filter Pies
I wondered if I could wash and reuse the old filter material but it is not recommended. It seems like it would work because the material is quite sturdy. I would rinse out the black dirt and then machine wash and dry. I don’t want compromised filters in the system though. I read that they can be vacuumed but these were far too dirty to just vacuum dust out. I also washed out the dirt from the metal filters on each side. This is about the third or fourth time I have washed them. It is a pretty easy project.