Thanks, everyone. I just cooked my first meal on the new countertop with the new sink. I can see that I'll have to get used to things. Even though I have a pretty big sink, it isn't as big as before. My faucet reaches further and pulls out to spray. Cool, but let's just say that I was dangerous with that thing. I spent quite some time wiping off the counters after I got done, but I actually didn't leave the recycle on the counter, and I cleared them all off. Maybe this will be a good thing. I also discovered that they didn't caulk along the back on the sink wall too. They did on all of the other ones, though. Just one more thing for my talk tomorrow. Everyone sees the places in the granite that I do, but they don't think it's a big deal. I'll bring it up with the granite guy, and see what he says. I'll let you know.

"energy_rater, if you vent the humid air from a bathroom to the soffit, what's going to keep that moist air from going right into the attic?" back draft damper attached to bath fan housing. venting attached to back draft damper. venting exits soffit to exterior. fan being on will push air out of venting, venting to exterior of attic will keep moisture out of attic. also, if you ever take off the cover of the bath fan from inside the house..there is an oversized cut in the ceiling that is covered by the cover of the bath fan. sealing this cut is recommended to keep attic air/temps/ insulation particles out of houses. I use Hardcast brand mastic tape #1402. I also use this tape to attach back draft damper to housing of bath fan for air tight seal, and to attach venting to back draft damper. best of luck.

Ichabod, we're in the desert southwest, but I probably should have expanded on that comment! Our annual average rainfall here is under 10". Snow does happen but is not common. Ice dams are not a problem here, for example, so local code does not require ice and water shield at the eaves, either. We recently had a wet 6" snow but that is fairly remarkable for us, down here in the southern part of New Mexico. Also to you and tlbean2004, thanks for your thoughts on the metal flashing. We may request metal valley flashings, with ice and water underneath. Metal flashings got the roof through 17 years with no problems, so I'm not sure why to abandon them now...unless the technology of modern underlayments has rendered metal valley flashings obsolete. I thought that was what the roofer was implying, and we weren't sure if that was correct. I'll admit I am also a bit more worried about this roof than I would be if it was not such a low pitch. So you folks are a big help. klem1, thanks for your explanation. Nope, no interest here in removing the 2x2 trim to try to treat the rafter tail end grain (DH would leave me if I suggested that) so it looks like the consensus is to keep a very wide metal flashing. I guess it will be less distracting when painted to match the wood. Our house was built in 1965 and I sure don't want to make uninformed decisions that lead to damage...all for the sake of looks. (As much as I dislike the look of the big drip edge.) I guess a smaller drip edge and rotted wood would not be very pretty, either. I need to figure out which ice and water shield product will work in our hot temperatures, if we want it under the metal valley flashing. One bid specifies GAF Weatherwatch (but the contractor isn't local.) I don't know how heat resistant that product is. I know Grace Ice and Water has the best reputation, but I was surprised to see the Grace website says that only their most expensive product, Grace Ultra, should be used in the desert southwest: Grace IWS Contractor's Guide So if the esteemed Grace Ice & Water Shield (regular product) will not stand up to desert southwest heat, I wonder how any of the (much less expensive) GAF ice and shield products would work. There are a few scary stories in some roofing forums about "bitumen bleed" when ice and shield products are used in higher temps than recommended. (Roofing is not for sissies, have you noticed?)

Have my new roof scheduled for install in May. The roofer does like ridge vents, so I take that to mean they've not had problems with the ones they have done. They originally worked mainly in Running Springs, CA - yearly snow. And they use the full Certainteed setup, and have the designation of a Select Shinglemaster from Certainteed, so could give me the Surestart Plus 5 Star warranty - that was the deciding point for me on it. They didn't think the drip edge intake vents were needed - the existing gable vents should be fine. And while I like the concept of the drip edge vents combined with the ridge vents... when I bought the place 11 years ago, the inspector said ventilation was fine - gable vents and on-roof traditional vents. An area we differed in... I want these pipe flashings - https://www.lifetimetool.com/shop/ The stainless steal version, even though I'm not in a marine area. So he said he'd do those. But he really preferred standard metal and paint to match roof. He wants to hide them. I want to accentuate them as being done in a better (?) way. That piece is probably totally subjective.