I had some free time this evening (DH is out of town!) and I love playing around with sketching floor plans, so I decided to pull out my non-professional CAD program and see what I could come up with to fit your property. Idea was to see if I could give you all the rooms on the main floor that you wanted including space enough for 30 - 40 family members to gather, while maximizing the views of the lake, and allowing light to enter all major rooms from 2 directions and keep the heated/cooled square footage down to under 2800 sq ft. I also wanted to minimize west facing windows because those can bring in way too much heat. And of course, I wanted to make the main floor fully wheel chair accessible. I kind of like what I came up with so I thought I'd show it to you. The floor plan is below and below that is the house situated on your property as best as I can figure based on the photos you posted. **************************************************** FYI - all single doors are 36" wide, the staircase to basement if 4 ft wide, hallway leading to mud room is 5 ft wide with a 4 ft cased opening to the foyer. I didn't put a fireplace in the Great Room. It could go on either interior wall. His part of closet is 5 ft wide, hers is 7 ft. Shower is 50" x 102" so plenty big enough to roll a wheelchair in. I think the only thing missing is the "sun room." I left that out b/c, except in the far north, sun-rooms are one of those ideas that sound a lot better than they often work out to be. But, if you really really want one and otherwise like the plan, the banquette could be shifted over to where the patio doors are, the kitchen patio doors moved to where the banquette is and then a sun-room with south and west facing windows could be placed in the corner between garage and kitchen. Even with windows on just two sides (south and west), I think it is likely to get way too hot for regular use tho. Besides, another alternative would be to make the sitting room into a semi-sun-room by using floor to ceiling glass. South and southeast facing windows would get plenty of light without admitting quite so much heat. Anyway, if you like the layout, feel free to use it as is or with any changes you see fit to make. I just do this for fun so I'm happy to waive all copyright claims.

Hi all, I have some questions to ask current ARS users, due to the specific configuration of our stove area--it's not atypical, but it seems to be suboptimal for any of the ARS hoods' guidelines. Specifically, we plan to replace a hood/microwave hybrid that the previous owner (a flipper) installed over a 30" electric stove. The cooking space (i.e. the height of the area between the cooktop and the bottom of the hood/microwave) is 20", and the microwave itself is 15.5", and the microwave is mounted on a cabinet that's about 17" tall. However, since VAH's guideline suggests the cookspace should be 20-24" tall, installing the under-counter ARS hoods (PRAH6/SLAH6) directly under the cabinet would make the cooking space about 5.5" taller (29.5") than what's recommended. But the specs seem to imply the 30" wall-mount models use a 7' duct for all the filtration media, and our kitchen doesn't have that much clearance (the height between the bottom of the microwave to the ceiling is less than 5'). My questions for ARS owners are: Is the suction still acceptable if the clearance between the cooktop and the hood is 30" (instead of the 20"-24" recommended by the specs)? How likely an under-counter ARS (PRAH6/SLAH6) can be mounted on the wall? Can the wall-mounted ARS models be installed without a duct cover--and in that case, how long actually is the duct where the filtration takes place? Thanks for your answer in advance!

I own the ERR 3502 R30 and have for 9 years. it works fine as a water softener. It is supposed to have a carbon filter in it but I think that is ridiculous. The filer needs to be renewable and it is not. Buy a GE at Home Depot for several hundred and a replaceable cartidge filter to remove sediment and a carbon filter for taste. Several thousand for a water softner is a joke. I paid $3500 for the plumber to install it. Now the unit is sold via Costco only in SoCal and the price doubled. Don't be a dope. It is a water softener and filters need changing. Change the filter when the taste says to do it and save a fortune.

If a ball valve has a problem it's usually at install. Either a defective ball valve or more likely the installer applied too much heat or took too long when soldering it in. The reason I recommend a three ball bypass along with the OEM bypass is that most dealers want to install just the OEM bypass and the redundancy of the additional three ball bypass, at it's modest cost during installation, is a good idea. With no Kinetico bypass what you have will serve you once the ball valves that leak are taken care of. Understand before you speak with the dealer that the water at the float valve is under system water pressure and all that is between correct operation and failure is the float. The tank drain elbow is provided so that if the float fails the overflow will be directed to a drain cause if it fails when no one is around it will be pumping water into the brine tank at house pressure. If there is no floor drain handy then it is common to drill a hole through an exterior wall and run a PE tube from the brine tank elbow through the wall to the outside. The elbow is a gravity drain and will not run water up. Many softeners are installed disregarding the brine tank drain and as long as the float never fails or leaks it's OK. I've seen quite a few where the float failed and there is substantial water damage. Do not let the dealer minimize the importance of the brine tank drain or say it can be ignored because you're betting a lot on that float mechanism... an awful lot. If something does happen and there is no line to drain there's a chance your homeowner's insurance won't cover the damage. With a washing machine I'd think that one of the Gap-It airgaps from airgap.com will do nicely. Pick the one that accommodates both the washer drain hose and the softener drain hose.