Though a very old thread, it is likely there will be some, like myself, reading and needing accurate information. In pursuit of truth, I comment on the part of the thread dealing with copper and concrete. The waterline from the water main to my house and a multitude of other houses is made from 3/4 inch copper, traverses the 8-inch concrete foundations and exits into the basement by penetrating through 4-inch concrete floors. My house has been here since 1970, as have been all on my block. Neither I, nor any of my neighbors, have had a problem with deteriorated copper lines. Were a copper/concrete interaction a problem, it would surely have emerged in at least one of our homes. 'Nuf said.

I got the Soilmaker (see the link below) from my city. I'm concerned about whether there's enough ventilation. While it looks like there may be ventilation holes in the slats on each side, that's not the case. The only ventilation holes are the two rows on each of the two little doors on the bottom of two sides of the composter. Is this too little ventilation? Should I attempt to drill some additional holes myself? Here is a link that might be useful: Soilmaker

Thanks all. Hose Vixen -- I do love that little powder room, had I to do it over I might have been more creative with the tile work, but at that pooint i was still figuring out how to do all this stuff. The tumbled marble really does have a warm look and feel to it, much more so than the image conveys. I wanted to do the master with it but my wife thought it would be to hard to clean and that it would look to masculine. I lost that battle! Mongcot -- 1) Did you put a membrane (6-mil poly or lapped tar paper) between the Durock and the framing? I don't see anything int he photos. We did not put anything between the framing and the wall board. I had intended to, even boght the poly, but it just never happened. i also think it's overkill, we took off the existing original drywall and there were'nt even any water stains behind the areas that showed moisture damage. I did, however, fill all the voids with fiberglass insulation for sound proofing. The shower wall is against my sons room, before you could really hear the shower running, toilet flush and my little AM radio when i listen to the news in the morning. Now you hear almost nothing, glad I did that. With regards to your shower membrane, the 40-mil Oatey? 2) Did you install a deck mud preslope and then put the membrane over the preslope, or is the membrane flat on the subfloor and you did a deck mud preslope on top of the membrane? No preslope. 1/2" plywood floor, 1/4" Hardi Backer (may have been 1/2" and 1/2", don't really remember)then the memberane, then the mud. All the sloping was done in the mud. 3) Where the membrane goes over the curb, you nailed the membrane into the top of the curb. How did you attach the backer board to the inside edge of the curb? Nails or screws into the curb? You can see that the membrane only covers about one third of the curb. I added some wood shims (just enough to give the curb a very slight angle toward the shower) and mortered the HardiBacker curb top down and screwed it as well, trying to keep the screws out of the membreane line. There are new screws on the inside edge of the curb. I figured between the morter, the tile overlapping the curb on the ends and gravity, the curb isn't going anywhere! Oh, and give your helper a promotion! What, he has union representation now? We are a non-union home in a right to work state, meaning he can be fired without cause and with no recourse. He needs to walk a fine line, escpecially with a younger, more trainable staff member coming along soon!!!!!!

Ok I haven't kept up with the postings since I was so close to the end.... Here is what happened since the day after the Pebble was placed....Which was May 24th, on the 25th a Friday they came to acid wash it and wow it just made it shine. We were very happy with it except for one small detail as you can see in a picture that I posted before in the middle of the pool there is a line or half circle that forms in the middle of the pool well that's were the second batch was mixed in and added so there is that line they say they have no control over that and well it's not like thay are going to take it all out and do it over. I mean I can live with it but it does drive my husband crazy... Anyways, that same day after the acid wash we started to fill the pool it took us 26 hours to fill the pool.... But it did look beautiful when it was done... although my husband didn't wait till it was full to get it. This time around we dicided that we would do the chemicals ourselves to save some money I called many places for advice and the most helpful was a local mom and pop pool shop we have in town. Set me up with everything we needed and gave me a crash corse in how to maintain the pool. So far so good... Now that we had the pool filled we were excited to start filling up our back yard with all of our patio stuff... so we needed to get a finally inspection so start doing that. Now most would think that would be the easy part of the this whole remodel project, think again it has been the most frustrating and annoying part. So here is my story I will try to be breif... I called Monday after the pool was filled to ask for the gunite report so that we could have final inspection. They said no problem we will get on it and get that to you. So that week went by and no report that was the week of the 5/28. So let go to the next week 6/4 Called agian looking for my report hoping to have better news instead I was told that the report takes time it has to be analized in a lab and can take up to a month to get back. I thought well we did gunite about a month ago so where is my report. They said we will check on it. Another week went by now the week of 6/11 hoping that this would be the week so that I could have a nice family BBQ on the weekend... No I was told that the deputy inspector has the report and the it was done but that he need to get it to the gunite guy but that the deputy inspector lives in Lancaster and that it was to far and doesnt alway get to see him. At this point I offered to make the hour and a half drive if there wasn't traffic to go get the report myself. But then when I asked the gunite guy for the deputy inspectors information he was like well let me call Gary (my contractor) and I'll call you back. To say the least I did not get a call back that day so I called my contractor the next day to see what was going on... This is the next story that I got, Oh the report is still in the lab and they wont release it until you pay us which by this point I had for seen this issue and my contractor already had my check in his posesion. They said well the lab will need to send us the invoice and that takes about a day and then we pay them and then they release the report in another day or two. This is now our present week of 6/18 and now that the lab has been paid and the report has been released... I call the contractor and ask where is the report? They said to me we don't have it the Gunite guy has it you need to call him. I said alright, I called the Gunite guy and he says no I don't have it this other Deputy Inspector that works with the other one that lives in Lancater has the report, I say well give me his number so I can get it from him. The story only gets better I promise... He tells me that he will call the inspector but he has not been feeling well so I don't know if he will have it ready in time. I am like great another delay... By this point I'm starting to think that this report is a figure of my imagination. Anyhow, he says that he will call him and see if he can get it from him today. I call before 3 pm today to see if there was any world on my report. Well he said he didn't get a chance to talk to him cause he was not feeling well cause he has cancer so he is very under the weather. I was like great now the guy has cancer what else can go wrong... Well he says let me call you back, I was like sure but don't hold out much luck for a call and just figure I will go another week without my inspection. Well to my surprise he does call back and informs me that the inspector is still in surgery and doesn't know how long he will be in the hospital for so he could not know when the report would be ready.... So, I don't know what to think anymore is the guy going to die and I will never get my report so I can finish with my back yard... I am not saying that maybe there is truth to the story and I feel for the inspector if he is battling cancer but after so much run around that they have given me I can not help wonder if it is true or not.... It's going to be a month since we filled our pool and almost 2 months since we did the gunite job. Now the reason that I can not put my BBQ island and other stuff in the yard until after inspection is that the BBQ island that we bought and restored (I will post pictures of that as well) Is that in the place we wish to put it is not up to code and although it is not a bad place or dangerous place that we want to put it we don't want to have anything that stops us from clearing ispection. And for me you can't really enjoy your back yard until you can BBQ in it.... I will keep you posted on my report sistuation... And I will up load more photos soon.