CAZ Construction

Thanks Katherine! Glad you has a great experience.

Thanks Kyle! I look forward to working with you again in the future.

Hi Jesse, thanks for reaching out, and I’m sorry that you are upset about the price of the bid. However, I reviewed the bid that we did for your grandparents, the relevant code, and photos of the home. I discussed the situation with my operations manager and estimator, and would like to explain my perspective. For background, the home is two stories, with the bathroom on the second floor. The roof slopes from the peak to the top of the first floor, meaning the exterior walls of the bathroom are actually the steeply pitched roof. When your grandparents contacted us, their concern was that the existing bath fan did not draw enough air. When my estimator was onsite with them, he found that the bath fan was actually a fan with a heater built in, and was the sole heat source for the bathroom. The bath fan was installed at a high point in the bathroom, and vented all the way down the roof, exiting the building below the floor of the bathroom. The fan/heater was on the same circuit as the lights in the bathroom. Your grandparents had purchased a fan to replace the existing, but it did not have a heater. They told my estimator that they wanted heat in the bathroom, so my estimator suggested that they return that fan and he would include one in his bid that had a heater. He also recommended that the fan be vented up through the roof, instead of down through the wall, and that we cap the existing ductwork. In his opinion, just replacing the fan would not solve the problem of low draw, because the fan would still have a long, downward angled exhaust, which would reduce the output of the fan. On the bid, he also included a permit, and a new 20 amp circuit dedicated to the fan. At this home's address, the electrical work is inspected by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries using the 2020 Edition of the National Electrical Code under the Revised Code of Washington, Chapter 19.28. There are a laundry list of rules to follow which range from basic ones, such as work must be done by a certified electrician working for a licensed electrical contractor, to more complicated ones, such as load limits on branch circuits. Chapter 2 Section 210.22 covers permissible loads on individual branch circuits. To describe this broadly, circuits are generally allowed to be connected to no more than 80% of their rated load in watts. For example, a 15 amp circuit with 120 volts can be connected to a load of no more than 1440 watts (15a x 120v x 0.8 = 1440w). The fan/heater we proposed to install was 1600 watts, leading to the need for a dedicated 20 amp circuit. In addition, the manufacturer of this fan/heater requires that it be installed on its own 20 amp 120 volt circuit. My concerns are that either 1.) the other contractor installed a fan with no heat, leaving the bathroom cold with a potential for frozen pipes and mold and not solving the original problem of a low draw on the fan or 2.) the other contractor installed a fan with heat, without a new circuit, and without moving the ducting, leading to a possible code violation and safety hazard as well as not solving the original problem.

Hi Andy, sorry to hear that, can you call the office and tell me the location? I'll get it moved right away. 360-389-1056.

Thanks Cheryl! It was great to meet you as well, and thank you so much for your kind comments.