Hi Mike, AC set at 72 though I'd be comfortable with it higher. I want it to run to take out humidity. It was set at 75 and room temp was 75 at 12:30 when I got home. I turned it down to 72. The stat is reading 74 temp while still set at 72 so it's running. The room with my weather station says its 73.3 and 55%, so it dropped about 2 degrees in 3 hours. The compressor should be in the full sun by now if that makes a difference. It does feel like a cooler 72-73 when the humidity is lower. Indoor Humidity was in the low 60's this morning. Apparently on these hot days it is running quite long to get down to set temp. I think I got % down to low 50's one day this week. I'm thinking now maybe the problem is my basement causing the humidity to rise when the ac isn't running. Today Basement is at 67%, temp about 67 also. unfinished, one supply that is blocked off with cover and tape, no returns. The basement was up to 75% sometimes last week (wet week). I've never had wet walls or water in the basement. No mold, no sweating ductwork. Still haven't found out which wire is my low ac, but I assume it's running on hi-stage with the temps outside. I don't understand when it goes to low from high. I assume it started in high when I turned it down from 75 to 72, but when will it bump to low stage? Or does the outside temp make it stay in high? The fact that it has been running long on theses hot hot days and takes a long time to get down to 73 makes me think maybe it is NOT that oversized (but maybe just a little or it wouldn't get that low at all)? Last year when we were hitting the 99's for several days I had trouble getting the old unit down to 78. It wasn't comfortable at 78 .

I may not be able to describe this well, but I'll give it a shot. We were able to check the flatness of our assembled cabinets by pulling reference strings across the surface. We tapped small nails vertically into the cabinets at some edge locations, leaving most of the nail sticking up. We then pulled strings (we used mason's string) tight between the nails, so the strings ran the length and width of the cabinets. We used a small wood block (about a 1/4 inch thick) to set the gap between the cabinet and the string at each end (right near the nail). Then with the string the same height at each end, we could use the block to check the clearance at all the places in between the nails. This worked great for us where we needed to make sure the entire u-shaped set of cabinets were in the same plane for the granite.

This is one of those "for the want of a nail, the kingdom was lost" type of situations. The real issue here is the whole home's levelness, not the floors, not the cabinets, not the countertops, not the backsplash. Put your level on your floor and see if it all goes downhill as well. I'm sure it does, but the question is how much out of level is it? That's when you need to crawl under the home and figure out WHY everything isn't level. If it's "just" settling, and the home is done settling, then you can begin to address everything that has been affected by this condition. If your foundation is subsiding, or a beam has broken, you need to have that addressed immediately. Once you diagnose the reason for the whole issue, only then can you attempt to start at the beginning and fix what's wrong here. You may need to jack up your floor support. You may need to remove the cabinets and shim from the bottom. It may be OK to just remove the counters and create long thin shims for the top. But you have to know what the disease is before you can diagnose the cure. And yes, this will also affect your uppers if they are not level. You need to know that, as well as if your ceiling is level. Everything needs to be looked at with your level before you crawl under the house.

N Sue: Your cabinet installer is a hack and you can tell him I said so. Place a straightedge under your level to make it a four footer or so, then place the straightedge with the level on top in an "X" fashion over the dishwasher opening, corner to corner. Do this all around too. Sight down the cabinet fronts. Are they straight, or do they follow a crooked wall? Let's have a picture of the screws he's using and their placement too, please. Walls and cabinets ganged together. You can't just screw a cabinet to a wall and call it good. If the wall is bowed, you'll pull the cabinet out of square, known in the trade as "racking". You may never get the door to shut properly. Finally, to answer your title question, "It depends." Eurostyle full overlay doors and drawer fronts leave no room for molding to cover shims at the countertop so you'll have to caulk to cover them. Even with perfectly set cabinets, some shimming may be required to compensate for varying thicknesses of stone. I just cut an estone top for a cooktop today. This customer's eggs are all gonna slide to one end of the pan because the cabinets and tops are out by 3/16" or so. Nothing I could do, the splash and tile above are in. He can shim his cooktop in crooked but level though. That's why this is important.