Okay - thanks everyone for your input. I spent the evening looking over my bills and refiguring the math. I went with a the heat pump for several reasons. #1 - Going complete electric. The furnace was our only gas appliance and once I did the math, I realized it wasn't worth it to keep gas supplied for that because of the delivery charge. (see #2) #2 - in our case, electric heat is cheaper. See if you follow my math: Electric - Right now we pay $0.10 per kWh with an additional 12.77% service charge for various things. I didn't include the sales tax in this calculation b/c it is the same for both services. With fees, that would be $0.1135 per kWh With a HP at 9.5 HSPF, we pay $11.95 per million Btu. Natural Gas - Right now we are paying $0.74 per therm with a $27.99 per month delivery fee (which is standard for our area). Based on last years usage: 12 months x $27.99 = $335.88 We used 681 therms x $0.74 per therm = $503.94 Total cost of $839.82 / 681 therms = $1.23 per therm with fees. With a 95% Eff furnace that ends up being $12.95 per million Btu. Since we are improving the insulation, our therm usage may go down by 30% but our monthly service charge wills stay the same so: [(476 therms x $0.74 per therm) + $335.88 delivery charge] / 476 therms = $1.45 per therm with fees That would drive our our cost per million Btu to $15.26 So . . . Heat Pump Unit and Furnace + AC Units at equivalent efficiency cost the same thing - $5,200 Heat Pump costs $11.95 per mil Btu for heat Furnace costs $12.95-$15.26 per mil Btu for heat I am assuming the cost to cool will be equivalent since both units will use electricity and are equally efficient. In addition, I get $400 rebate on the heat pump. #3 - Our mild climate. While anecdotal, I talked to several people in my area with heat pumps and they were very happy with the temperature control in their house. No one had trouble with the heat pump keeping up during our short and infrequent cold snaps. #4 - Heat pump is greener. Natural gas is a fossil fuel and while fossil fuels are also used to generate electricity, there is always the opportunity for renewable energy sources to be introduced. If we get a NG furnace, we are stuck to only using fossil fuel as an energy source. So . . . that is why I decided on a heat pump. And yes, we are addressing all the insulation and air sealing issues so the house will (hopefully) not be drafty and conducive to heat pump being able to adequately heat our home. Thanks everyone!!!

Thanks everyone for your advice! I went to the library yesterday and found a fairly good book on Mesembs/Succulents indicating where certain species live, when they get rainfall/fog and how much. The major difference is their growing season- summer or winter. The other thing is growers in CA are growing their lithops completely different than growers in the UK/N Europe (for obvious reasons). My understanding is that growers in CA can mimic their natural growing environment, due to fantastic light year round and fairly warm temps. With the UK/N. European growers many seem to push for winter dormancy regardless due to cooler temps and lack of light. There is no clear cut answer, which complicates it further :/. Will have to spend a bit more time doing research on the types Im interested in growing and seeing how I can get them to do well in my environment.

It all depends on the plants you are growing. Age, variety, size, breed. If you check over my hydro start 2015 thread i give all my ppm readings at start through current. Its a long read but clkingtx had alot of very good questions i answered which would give you an idea of where you want to start at through flowering. You can measure ppm right after mixing the nutrients, no need to wait. Ph you want to give it time to stabilize so i usually wait half an hour. The reason they give different ratios of grow/micro/bloom is dependant alot on what you are growing. Lettuces like a 15ml grow/10ml micro/5ml bloom. Tomatoes like a 10/10/10. Peppers 5/10/15. Cucumbers 10/10/15. Etc.... Thats just a general ratio and not a strength concentration. 250-500ppm for starts are generally acceptable. Using the floranova series i use 1/2tsp per gallon start, a few weeks later bump to 1tsp per gal, Then if the plants want it ill go higher. Youll know eventually just by looking at the plants what they want.

http://www.bellacerafloors.com/hardwood-floor/floor-care.aspx It is odd that Bella Cera floors would suggest a material (Murphy's Oil) that the care/maintenance instructions CLEARLY state are NOT ALLOWED. Did you contact Bella Cera or did you contact the point-of-sales (the store)? I can believe a store will offer the wrong information... Bella Cera has 2 finishes = Valspar Laquer and Oil Finished Floors. The OIL FINISHED floors require the oil refresher. The VALSPAR Laquer (of which your floor belongs) are NOT allowed the oil! I'm going to guess the person on the end of the line didn't know which product you had. They should have directed you to the website to find the instructions for your particular floor. Please use the link to down load your care instructions. Please stop using the Murphy's Oil. It will do weird things over the next decade or two. One application will be OK...more won't work out so well.