I finally had a chance to seek out the original Newsweek article. Just as I suspected. Turns out Newsweek's definition of "dying" constitutes small declines in overall population coupled with declines in number of people under 18, also relatively small. All of which could be turned around rapidly. Or maybe these cities were over crowded to begin with. Or maybe it's just that people in general are having fewer children. Heck, all of Europe may be dying if that's your only metric. I'm not sure that having a growing population should be considered a definition of "living" either. It could also be a cause of stress. Many cities in S. America are in horrible shape and they have tons of young people. Don't get me wrong, I know that MI was one of the only states that lost overall population in the last ten years according to the recent census. That's the impetus for these articles. But there's also a principle known as "how to lie with statistics" or in this case, how to overreach. I'm one of the ones who left. Thousands of young people are leaving due to not being able to have jobs. But MI has so much going for it, as this video suggests. Those tough folks who manage to stick it out will create a new future under the new circumstances. I almost hate to tell everyone how nice MI is because then you'll all want to go there and live. Michiganders actually like to keep that our little secret. Yeah, dying state, total rust belt, wouldn't want to come here and crowd all our beaches and roads and parking lots and public facilities and stores and drive up home prices. Just drive on by, nothing to see here. Um hello, being relatively uncrowded and not filled up with people is exactly why Grand Rapids is such a nice place. All the big city amenities, much less of the hassles. If you manage to get to live in West Michigan, you are PRIVLEDGED, not dying.

Will be looking for someone to do a water test. Is there some kind of standard named test to be done, or is it a matter of identifying each parameter a la carte? The old water heater location to the left of the door can't be used because there is no drain available there. The heater will be wall mounted (right wall) about 12" away from the corner due to venting clearances from door, outside corner, eaves, gas meter, etc. We weren't originally planning on a softener so there was no space allotted for it in the original location. Also, that door wasn't supposed to be there originally and was planned to be on the wall to the right, and at slab level (another long story). So now, we have 16" between the steps and the wall to see if we can fit a softener. Otherwise, it'll have to encroach towards the parkable area. Luckily, we have about another 3' before the restricted zone. The gas line on the lower left will be removed. I forgot to ask him about whether he'll be teeing off the existing gas line at the ceiling or just running a separate line to the meter since it's very close behind that wall. It came up as an option to avoid recalculating loads. Also, the recirculation stub down by the platform will be removed and moved over to the other wall as well. I haven't found or heard anything about enclosing the heater. It will have in and out vents, spaced 2' apart, directly out the wall. Well, the output will turn right for 2' first, then go out. Due to the height, we weren't required to have vehicle protection. The plumber had reviewed the current plan with the city already, so hopefully no new surprises with this setup. Also, due to the planned position of the heater, it will be tight for him to tee off for a whole house bypass at the current location. We're going to have to deal with the softener rework later then since we just want this part done as quickly as possible to get in already, and we don't want to add costs to this work to complicate the responsibility since we want the architect and/or gc to be covering the cost of the current rework. BTW, the standpipe will tee right above that bend and he had the iron(?) tee and trap and it looked to be 4", but he said that a separate vent would not be needed and was ok'd by the city.

So, it's been a tough few days, as we went back and forth with the PB. They mucked up on the measurements, but - hats off to them - they have owned their mistake. There's no avoiding the fact that we are going to lose more than they, but my interest is in getting a great final product, and I guess the price we will have to pay is a little steeper than we had anticipated! In addition to having to cut about a quarter of our Pergola away, we are also going to be losing nearly half of the remaining lawn, as the WHOLE pool has to move over 2 feet. Instead of a 18' by 7' lawn area, we are now left with a 16' by 5' area. Big bummer. So, end result is we have lost all our swings, and a quarter of the Pergola, and a half of remaining lawn. that's the bad news... The good news (there is good news!) is that the PB came out on Saturday, admitted his error, and we negotiated that he will certainly fix everything so it works functionally and aesthetically (step 1), but also that he will undertake to make some other tweaks that would normally have meant overages, at no cost to ourselves. Additionally, ANY and all further surprises or necessary fixes will be covered by them. So, I've lost a lot of the functionality of my garden, but I'm getting (I hope!) peace of mind for the rest of the project, no financial overages, no surprises that I have to deal with, and the pool I contracted to have built. Granted, we're far from done here (we've only just begun!), but the PB's willingness to step up and take responsibility was admirable. They could have disappeared, as so many contractors seem to often do. They could have forced me to take this to court. Instead, they conscientiously sought to find a solution that would be acceptable to all of us. They are certainly getting the better end of the deal, but they are also sharing some of the pain! So long as the rest goes (no pun intended) swimmingly, and we get a fabulous end result that lasts us for years and years, I'm cool! My daughter's enjoying it, at least!

A simple solution I've found for using kitchen sink water on my garden is to use a double bowl sink. One bowl of the sink is used for yucky stuff, and the waste from this bowl is plumbed into the sewer. The other bowl is used for clean rinse stuff, and the waste from this bowl is plumbed to the garden. Since it's never a whole lot of water coming from the kitchen sink I don't need to worry about ball valves etc, it just goes straight onto the garden. ETA: this is not legal. But I don't lose sleep over it. For anyone who's thinking about plumbing their laundry water to the garden and using mulch pits as filters, have a look at swale/berm theory. It sounds like a lot of you guys are using this already. Generally, you dig a ditch (swale) on contour, so that it's level, and fill this with mulch. On the downhill side of the ditch, mound up the dirt you dig out of the ditch to form a little embankment (berm) all the way along the ditch. Then, just downhill from your embankment, plant your fruit trees/anything that needs lots of water. Most people use the swale to catch rainwater and keep it on property, so that it sits in the ditch and slowly soaks into the ground. But it would also be good to run your laundry water pipe into your swales.