Tips

Decorative Exhaust Fans

Broan 761RB Exhaust Fan/light

This is one I’m excited about.  I recently installed several fan/light kits similar to the one pictured to the right at our remodel project.  I was able to put matching fans in the bathrooms and the utility room with light fixture trims that match the plumbing fixture trims, tying everything together.  Pretty cool!

Broan has several models in their Quiet line in a choice of CFM’s.  There are other manufacturers out there with similar products, so you should be able to find one that matches your style.

Exhaust fans are important, particularly in newer homes with tight building envelopes.  They help reduce moisture in wet rooms such as baths, showers and laundry rooms.  This helps prevent mold and mildew.

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Snow Loads

Even though we haven’t had a lot of snow this year, it’s still good to consider the effects on your home or building before it becomes an issue.  Roofs in our area of Indiana are designed to handle snow loads, i.e. the accumulation of snow on rooftops and the weight associated with that.  Most of our area has been designated by the Building Code to handle a 30 lb snow load.  That means the structure is designed to hold 30 pounds of snow per square foot.  This is a worst case scenario as we rarely see that quantity of snow.

Things to look for on the exterior are unusual drift patterns, ice damming that may be holding snow in a concentrated area, excessive icicles and structurally, drooping at the eaves.  Things to look for on the interior of the building are leaks, bowing purlins, rafters or trusses.  In the case of wood structures you can usually see where wood members are under stress.  Generally in the roof structure this shows up as bowing, but occasionally the structural piece may be such that it begins to crush before bowing shows up.

If you decide that there is an issue where snow needs to be removed, tread lightly!  LITERALLY!  Remember the problem you are trying to correct is excessive weight on the roof.  Your weight, or the weight of workers you employ to remove snow, create additional concentrated loading on the structure.  Also remember that removing snow from a roof is not equivalent to removing snow from a driveway or parking lot.  If you start moving the snow from the peak to the eave, left to right, as you often would when clearing snow from a driveway, you are increasing the concentrated load as you move the snow to the edge.  You may well exacerbate the problem you hoped to solve!

Butler Manufacturing Company (BMC) sends out an advisory on this for us to share with our clients.  You can view the PDF here.  It has some useful information on how to recognize a roof that may be overloaded, how to deal with a roof near collapse and how to document a roof collapse.  Some of the information is specific to metal buildings, but much of it is also useful for conventional construction as well.

For a couple of other related, cold weather, roof posts, see one on attic insulation here and one on ice dams here.

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Coffee Maker Protection

Before

If you work in a large office you generally have one of the large commercial coffee makers such as a Bunn or a Bloomfield as shown here.  If you’ve been around these then you know they put out a lot of excess heat.  In the case of this unit, the heat was sufficient that it was actually causing the counter top laminate to delaminate.  As you can see here, there was not a lot of distance between the top of the unit and the upper cabinet to add protection.  The solution?  An 18″ x 18″ floor tile.  Durable, heat resistant and not thick enough to cause any problems with the upper cabinet.

After

The tile was selected in a color similar to the counter top, though it is close enough to the coffee maker size that this wasn’t critical.  The tile has ridges on the back designed to help with grout adhesion.  In this case, those ridges help by creating additional air space and surface area to dissipate heat. Self-adhesive furniture pads were used on the bottom of the tile to create additional air space and prevent the tile from scratching the laminate when it is moved for cleaning.  All in all, a simple, economical solution to a common problem.

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Kitchen Storage Tips

Often the reason for remodeling a kitchen is to gain more storage space.  It’s not always possible to increase the square footage of the kitchen, so you are working with the same floor space and same wall space.  When you select your cabinets, consider adding these cabinet accessories:

1. Internal lazy susans: These spinning conveniences come in a variety of shapes, like the classic circular design, kidney-shaped and half-moon.  (See the picture to the right.)They take advantage of space in the back of corner cabinets that is often blocked off.
2.  Slide-out shelves: Deep cabinets are great if you can see and reach all the way back, but at less ideal angles, your kitchen supplies may never see the light of day again. Installing shelves that slide out eliminates this issue by bringing the far-back section of the shelf to you — think of it like a shallow drawer built in to the cabinet.
3. Swivel-out shelves: Like the love child of a lazy susan and a slide-out shelf, swivel-out shelves work great for maximizing cabinets built into awkward corners. (See the picture to the right)  In many ways, this is even better than the internal lazy susan, since it brings the shelves out where you can see everything on them.
4. Pull-out cabinets: Like big drawers made of stacked shelves, pull-out cabinets give you the storage of a deep cabinet with more accessibility than a pantry.
5. Partitioned drawers: Tall, deep drawers are rarely fully utilized. They’re either left half empty or you never see the stuff at the bottom. Adding in partitions or built-in dish racks let’s you pack ’em full and find everything inside.
6. Cabinets with drawers: More serious — and more versatile — than just slide-out shelves, drawers built into cabinets let you take advantage of extra space in a big cabinet or store important pieces next to their larger counterparts (like a drawer of lids built into a cabinet full of plastic containers).
7. Cabinet door extras: Deep cabinets with room to spare in the front are a great place for built-in bins and hooks on the inside of cabinet doors.
8. Hidden appliances: If you’ve got some extra cabinet space, consider remodeling cabinets to hide certain appliances. From trash compactors (see picture at the right) to wine coolers, dish washers to refrigerators, there are plenty of appliances that can be made to blend right in with the rest of your cabinets. A countertop-level cabinet with an outlet in the back can keep blenders, food processors and coffee makers plugged in, accessible and out of plain sight.

If you want to get REALLY creative or have already maxed out everything you can do with common features, consider these ideas:

1. Build corner drawers.  Right now, you likely have dead space where cabinets meet at 90-degree angles. Your existing cabinets can be modified to make use of deep, dead-corner spaces by building custom angled drawers.  This will require a skilled finish carpenter, but in a tight space, the expense can be worth it.
2. Create custom drawers or shelves.  While the lazy susan is an improvement over leaving inaccessible dead space, it still creates unusable voids.  (The opposite problem to putting a square peg in a round hole.)  Replace your inefficient lazy susan storage with custom drawers or roll-out shelves that are specially designed to hold spices, pots and pans, and other frequently used wares that don’t fit neatly into standard spaces.
3. Add a pull out pantry.  Custom cabinet makers can build specialty lengthwise drawers to fit in a space as narrow as five inches, as tall as 80 inches or more, and fit the depth of your cabinets.  Although narrow, such pullouts can accommodate regular pantry fare, such as cereal boxes and soup cans.
4. Grab wall space.  Make use of the shallow space between wall studs for shelves perfectly sized for spices, olive oils, and vinegars. If you’re an avid cook, you’ll love having these essentials at your fingertips, easy to see and reach.  Remember though, in a remodel project you may find surprises in those wall cavities.  There may be wiring, plumbing vents, HVAC runs or other infrastructure hidden in the wall.  It is best to make an unobtrusive exploratory hole to see what you’re getting into before getting out the sledge hammer and bashing holes.  Also remember that if this is an exterior wall, it should be insulated.  Not only will you lose insulation value by removing it, but you could create a drafty cold spot.
5. Hide it in the floor!  Though an uncommon solution, in a truly cramped kitchen storage can be gained by adding a trap door in the floor to access the space between the floor joist for storage.  Obviously not for your everyday items, this storage idea can gain a space approximately 10″ deep by 14″ wide by whatever length you choose.  This isn’t something that you can do with a ceramic tile floor, but some other flooring finishes are conducive.  As with the stud space storage discussed above, it is important to remember that there may be infrastructure currently using that space for which accommodations will be necessary.

These tips are based on information from ImprovementCenter.com, though many of these ideas have been implemented by Easterday Construction in past projects.

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