Vicki, tell your hubby not to be such a nitpicker. The guy who levels the area can go a little bit over sized, and then it can be taken care of when you back fill to the size of the foundation. As far as the need for a true foundation, it looks like to me that this GH does not really require it. My recommendation is, unless you want to put it onto a poured concrete or laid concrete block foundation (which might require you to have a building permit) just dig holes at the corners, and about every two to three feet along the sides (on the inside) and set treated wood posts at least three feet deep. Then attach your treated two by eight base frame to it. I don't have one of these GH's yet, but hopefully someone who does will send you the dimensions from thiers. If not, open the box and find the instruction sheet. (If worse comes to worse, you may have to measure your base plates. I've bought Harbor Freight stuff in the past, and know first hand how "good" thier instructions are.) Kevin

Hi Willa, To work well, the top and bottom tracks need to be parallel and solid. I do have a wooden base under the steel GH base, and that might provide some stiffness to the bottom track. One idea is adding an extra brace to the frame right over the top of the doors, to stiffen up the top track. That seems to help the doors operate more smoothly too. We just added a piece of oak we had, but others folks have used a piece of EMT or aluminum angle in the same spot. The idea is to help prevent the top track from sagging at all if possible. (click to enlarge) Also, this is a good thing to check...there's a small illustration at the bottom of page 15 of the manual, labelled Side View. (Shown below.) This shows you that the small black plastic clip Part 51 has to be guided onto the bottom door track so the small vertical part of the aluminum track is actually threaded up into the vertical gap in the center of black plastic part 51. If you do it right, the bottom leg of the black plastic "L shape" goes down the front and under the L-shaped aluminum door track, as the illustration shows. If you don't install it just like the manual shows, it's actually possible to install the doors so that the black plastic part 51 is just sitting on top of the door track, sliding along in the small valley there. Although your doors can function (sort of) this way, they can also fall off, since they're not truly captured at the bottom in the manner the kit intends. My doors can't even be pulled off the track, top or bottom. I've honestly never seen anyone comment that the wheels can be pulled off the door itself, and there really shouldn't be that kind of pressure on the door to cause that at all...it makes me think something else is wrong with your door tracks (problem with your bottom track rising up?) or, with the black clip not being installed quite right, as in the illustration above. I'm kind of scratching my head over what would possibly cause that. :-( This part of my blog talks more about the doors, in case there's anything helpful here to you: Assembling the roof, windows, and doors

Haus_proud: Yes, I know downdraft is not the preferred method of venting but it has been fine for our purposes. We seldom use it anyway. We're redoing the entire kitchen and it's 18 years old so we figured we should go ahead and replace it too. I'm pretty sure it is a 600 CFM fan. I asked about just replacing the downdraft portion and keeping the remote fan but the sales rep said he thought they changed the wiring. I'm not sure if that is something that we can get around. The current unit has 3 speeds and an 8" rise and the Electrolux that I am looking at has variable speed, a 10" rise and costs less so that was the incentive for going with it if I had to replace both the downdraft and remote blower. I figured the variable speed would let me use lower CFM if I wanted to and I preferred the dial over the multiple speed buttons that collect gunk and seem like the weak link in the system. The instruction manual lists 3 1/4" x 10" and 10" round. And it says not to use duct with less cross-sectional area than what is recommended. 7" round has more area than the 3 1/4" x 10" so that seems like it should work, no? My concern is that the area of a 7" round is half that of a 10" round so why would you want/need to use 10" round?

LOL - I'm not sure what you are representing there. I think everything gets squashed up when you try to represent area. All I'm thinking about is the bedroom in question and the doorways. How about this. There is a rectangle which is roughly 13 feet by 10.5 feet. The Top wall is a 5 foot portion and an 8 foot portion of the nook. The Left wall is 8 feet and has a bathroom entry at the bottom. The Bottom wall is 13 feet and has the doorway at the far left side. The Right wall is 10.5 feet and has a window on it. At this point where do you put the closet? Let's say the closet is 5' x 2' - which is a nice size. -- If you put it on the Left wall it makes the doorways somewhat tunnel like. -- If you put it on the 5 foot portion of the Top wall it narrows one part of the room further to 6 feet but doesn't create a tunnel. Maybe this is better in that it creates a 5 x 6 nook with closet and two doorways, and then an 8 x 10.5 area. If you draw this out, does it make sense? And is this better than either the 8 x 13 room? or the 10 x 10 and move plumbing room? which you first wrote about. Rachel