Information on Winterizing Banana Plants.......... If desired, spray your stump and ground area around the plant with a fungicide, (this is optional) and allow it to dry. Then take the 5 plastic lawn bags of leaves, tied closed with twist ties, and "winterize" your banana. Place 4 plastic lawn bags of dry leaves, (leave them in the plastic bags), around the stalk that you just trimmed, up against the stalk. Think of placing them to the North, South, East and West sides around the stalk, so that it is completely surrounded. Then place the last bag on top, to help shed off excess water and keep the stump and surrounding area drier. You can flatten it slightly if you want to. You just made an enclosure for your plant that will protect it from the elements, excess moisture, heat and cold, until spring. Then in spring when it gets warmer and daffodils and spring flowers start blooming, remove the bags of leaves and when the soil warms up--your banana will sprout again. When you see new growth and it's grown to about a foot tall, start your fertilization program. Sometimes your banana will grow right from the stalk you cut off last year, and sometimes it will send up new shoots from the ground where its roots are still alive. Either way, it's exciting to see it start growing again in spring! In our part of the country, Canada, you will be seeing growth in most areas by the middle of May. I have noticed some plants in my yard in shadier areas took until the first of June to start growing, though, so don't give up on it too soon! Pipe Insulation works the same way !!! Diana55

If it's cold enough outside for a faucet to freeze, how much do you use it that time of year anyway? Can't you drain it for the season?

napa I have 2 Rinnai tankless hotwater generators in series and I had to install a recirc pump since my generators are directly under the master suite (nice) but 88 feet away from the kitchen (long wait). The way I hooked mine up was to actually bypass the tankless hot water generators becuase I did not want the generators to cycle just to maintain hot water in the recirc loop. Instead, i bought a small 4 gallon electric tank and use the small tank to maintain hotwater in the line. If you go this route, then you can use a very small pump (i used the smt-303 laing pump that consumes 30 watts of power - see http://www.hvacquick.com for info). The recirc loop is connected to the main hotwater supply line just after the output of the hotwater generators - and then at the distant end just before all the branch lines going to various sinks. The supply side of the loop starts as 1 inch and then goes to 3/4 inch CPVC. The return loop i installed is 1/2 inch CPVC. I insulated the entire loop. The return side of the loop dumps into the 4 gallon tank and then on to the pump which pushes the hot water into the supply side of the loop. I also have a few shut off valves, a bleeder pipe& valve to remove air (very important), and an air vent (also very important). Laing now makes a new pump that has an integrated check value in it and that made the plumbing easier. I did not see that listed on the hvacquick site - call them and ask about the new pump. otherwise, you have to install a seperate check value - not a big deal, but the value must be matched to work with the pump (the output pressure of the pump is low). I used the white paper on the hvacquick.com web site (i think Laing also has some info on their web site) but modified it a bit for the tankless connection. This all started out when I wanted to supply my humidifiers with warm water and I realized that the tankless hot water generators would be kicking on and off whenever the hvac turned on - not waht I wanted. At the same time I then discovered the hot water delay issue. So my recirc system was designed to serve two puposes. I tapped off the recirc loop to supply 2 humidifers and it also keeps hot water in the line for the sinks. It works quite well. Whenever we turn on a sink at the distant end, we have a short delay (about 15 seconds) for the hot water in the recirc loop to push though the branch lines. The hot water generators kick in to backfill the hot water we use with a new supply of hot water. Whent he humidifiers kick in - the flow rate is so low that the hot water generators don't kick on (what I wanted) and the line is backfilled with a small amount of cold water. The small hot water tank then heats the water in the loop to the preset temp.

Although the pipes are defined as "in the slab" that is a slight misnomer. They can be said to be "in the slab" in the sense that once the slab is poured it would require cutting inot the slab to access the pipes but in actuality the pipes are laid in the subsoil under the slab prior to pouring the slab. Both the International Residential Code and the Uniform Plumbing code require that whenever a pipe is run through a masonary material the pipe is to be sleeved with a section of sched.40 pipe at least 2 nominal trade sizes larger that the desired pipe, however some local codes will allow pipes stubbing up from underslab to be sleeved with light guage flexible PVC tubing to prevent direct contact between the pipe and masonary material. The pipes both above and below grade may be insulated with standard foam pipe insulation and in some jurisdictions the foam pipe insulation will be accepted as a sleeve when stubbing up through the slab.