We're not sure about fabricating the slate on our own. But we are in NH and there are a lot of granite fabricators around, so we figure we can always interrogate them :) Though the kitchen is large and has a great big fireplace in it, if we use the existing cabinet layout, the counters are broken down into several 4 to 5 foot spaces. There currently is no island, we have a table for my 91 year old father to eat at. I also got a free hutch that I will paint and then use it to replace one of the cabinet runs next to the stove. So I'm still planning and dreaming and collecting great finds on craigslist. Funny, several years ago when I first discovered craigslist, I found that not only can you furnish an entire house for free but you can also get free mobile homes. Currently I'm looking for a round solid wood top table to repurpose. I know if I'm patient I can get it for free (and since I want to paint it, I don't want to pay for it!!!!). I built 2 glasshouses out of old windows and doors from craigslist too. It's a lot of fun and sometimes I regret all the money spent on house stuff. If you search under my user name, lots of pics of the house will show up on the home dec forum and the holiday forum. The glass houses may also be on the small house forum.

Call their 800 # to find distributor - http://www.keimsystems.com/concretal.html Hope people will respond w/ their experiences--coincidentally I just heard about this the other day, and am thinking about using it on my concrete block house. Been having the same problem trying to figure out what to use that won't create moisture problems

This is a tough one. The Ecovents themselves are pretty good. We’ve had them for six years, and they definitely work. On the other hand, the complaints about customer service and battery replacement are very real. We have 16 Ecovents in our home and have to replace the batteries every few months. About four years ago, we comtacted customer service about this, as that’s obviously a far cry from 3–5 years. Their customer service was awesome: they said they’d look into it and get back to me, and a couple of days later, they informed me that it was a firmware issue. Batteries were being drained much more quickly than expected, and as an apology (and out of gratitude for letting them know), they said they would cover my batteries for the next ten years: anytime I needed more, just let them know. Now, obviously, this was a great deal. Not only were they covering my costs, but it gave them another reason to improve the functionality: the better the battery life, the fewer they’d have to send. It was a win-win! A few months later, the batteries started dying and I contacted them. Obviously, they hadn’t fixed the problem; but true to their word, they sent me enough AA batteries to power all 16 vents. Unfortunately, that’s where it stopped: when the batteries started dying again, a few months later, I called for replacements and was told that free batteries isn’t something they do, that I’d obviously misunderstood. And, you know, that’s possible. I was probably just thrown off by the fact that after they said they’d send me free batteries, they sent me free batteries. It’s an understandable mistake. To be honest, the functionality has improved quite a bit, since then. The batteries still don’t last very long, but we’ve started buying them in bulk from Amazon. The Ecovents don’t seem to last much longer with high-end Energizers or Duracells than they do with Amazon’s own brand, so we save the money that way. I just replaced 40 of them, in the last 24 hours, and everything seems to be working just fine. Furthermore, Ecovent has been acquired by Keen Home, and they seem to have much better customer service than Ecovent’s eventually degenerated to be. (I won’t go into details, but suffice to say there were more issues than the battery one.) So yeah… a mixed bag. Personally, I think they’d probably do a lot better in addition to a traditional zoning system than on their own—which is, after all, an option they support. But since I’ve never had both Ecovents and traditional zoning in the same house, I can’t say for sure.

$80 would be rock bottom. Not sure I‘d trust anyone who charged the same amount as a counter top. This is much harder than you think. The material has to actually be able to travel through the house and through the bathroom door. Very often, that route isn’t large enough to have that happen, and walls must be taken down, and rebuilt, just to get it in the bathroom. Now, the bath walls have to be super flat and plumb. That requires reframing all of lf them, or sistering all of them. Before the job is ever templated. You don’t get to cut a faucet hole in it after it’s installed. Your shower stub outs are fixed in place, and this has to fit precisely. Plus the stainless lugs in the studs that this has to mount to, etc. $100 a square would be more the starting point. And only a very few folks in each region are going to really have the skill to start thinking about this.