just a dissenting vote re size. My drive way is 125' long and it has a 4 car wide parking area/turn around too. The winter of 04-05 gave us a good amount of snow usually 8-10" at a wack. here in Marshfield. I'm close enough to the ocean so snow tends to wet. I was using an old Ariens 20" 2 stage with a 4.5 hp motor. It was the little engine that could. As long as I kept the intake out of the snow that rig handled 2' drifts with out a problem. Last yr , I had an 8 hp 24" Ariens. less snow, and it was a bit faster, but my back felt the difference. I have no recommendations re replacement. Are you sure your present snowblower has a gear trouble or maybe it just needs a new belt or two?

I understand that the oven door on older versions of the BlueStar RNB could get quite warm (I've heard this described as "very warm" and "surprisingly warm" by two personally-known owners and in various ways by folks posting on the internet). My range is from this spring, 2011 -- I wouldn't say notably warm for either the door or the knobs. I can place my hand flat on the oven door, while the oven's in action, without any discomfort -- half a second, ten seconds, it just doesn't matter. It's not hot. Three kids and two small dogs and it's a non-issue. The culinarian is probably a very fine product -- certainly the specs look good and far be it from me to dispute anybody's happiness with his or her purchase. Folks should keep in mind that problems and praise for that range or any other on this board -- for all of this board's virtues -- represent a very small number of reports that may be more or less representative (or wildly unrepresentative) of the larger universe of consumer experience. With the culinarian, especially, we're talking about a very small number of reports on a fairly new product. Reported problems have not been many, but they have not been zero. Reports on Trevor's interventions have been very, very favorable, but not everybody has been instantly pleased by the company itself. I really don't mean to suggest that there are any major problems with the product or the company -- not at all. And for any particular person, for all I know, this may be an excellent choice -- maybe the best one possible. But surely folks know that the record is limited?

I have had the RF28HMED (very similar to the model you're looking at) for a month and love it but also hate a couple of things about it. I'm still getting used to where to put things to maximize space but it's getting better every day. One great thing is that nothing gets lost in the fridge even though it's not counter depth. Cons: Door storage on left side is hardly functional because of the ice maker shoot in the door. I hardly have any condiments that will fit on that side. The right door is very functional but less organized because the bins are so deep so everything is kind of just jumbled together. Main fridge portion seems crowded at times if you're not utilizing the flex drawer. It has a lot of shelves which is nice but for some reason I feel like there's still not enough room to put a bunch of leftovers. Pros: The drawers inside the main fridge are huge and glide smoothly. Again, they are huge. Love them! Flex drawer is currently used for cheese, apples and yogurt. I like that I can put anything in it I want. I originally wanted to store leafy greens in it including the huge spinach container from Costco...and it actually fits but the manual says not to store leafy greens in there. I love the slide away half shelf in the fridge as well as the tilt down shelf. The freezer has pretty good organization, no complaints there. The ice maker works pretty well but dispenses ice a little slow maybe. The water comes out very fast but the way the spout/nozzle is pointing pisses me off! It's angled sharply toward the fridge which makes it impossible to fill a tall narrow neck bottle. Wide mouth are fine as are standard glasses. I did get a 5yr warranty on it and I'd be shocked if I don't have to use it. On the other 4 door fridge you're looking at can you fit a pizza box, deli tray, or sheet cake in flat? That would be my biggest concern with those and maybe the answer is yes. I love being able to open both doors to fit something long in. Most of the time I only have to open one side to get what I need.

That is true, UK overall a bit milder than PNW US, but I think there is something else going on. I think there's just more of a culture there (in UK) of identifying and trying out these candidate rare plants, than anywhere else. Maybe if someone botanized a bit more in northern India, they'd find a hardier Aesculus indica. But there are not as many people to do it with the PWN in mind. Our catching up process is always two steps forward, three steps back. Also the UK (and Europe to a broader extent) had and have, those networks formed around the Imperial and Commonwealth worlds as people moved back and forth. Even Ireland: a friend of our family was the daughter of a doctor attached to the Catholic mission in Nairobi. When they moved back to Dublin in the 1950s, she said they took as many seeds as they could find to see what would grow in their garden. She said an acacia tree lasted for years. (I'm going to guess though that it wasn't a native Kenyan species, but an A. dealbata planted by the Brits) Or take a kind elderly lady in New Zealand, who spent 30 minutes showing me her garden, told me her daughter had moved to the UK. So that sort of movement is still going on. Being, physically, in a place where a rare (to your home station) plant can be observed, is I'm sure an important part of the process. I tend to me more moved by things I see "IRL" than in pictures or videos. Though perhaps with me, watching Peter Seabrook's segments on Victory Garden got the fire started, and actually going to Europe and the UK in 1993 made it engulf my soul hahahaha. But in the final analysis, the cultures are just different, period. For example thank goodness we had a Mike Lee running Colvos for a while, but in a culture where the consumption of interesting plants is maybe appealing to only 2% of the PNW populace, instead of perhaps 8% of the overall UK populace, one get the impression the nursery never really took off financially...and he had to 'retire' back to doing landscaping. Because he was running it, I spotted a little known (to me and most people) Larix masterisiana in his last catalog, and got one. I don't think anyone else has quite filled the niche he occupied yet. Maybe the closest is Far Reaches; also I'm told via a third party that the guy who runs Keeping It Green (where I got my Meliosma tree) was just in India collecting. So, again, tiny steps...an optimist would say we are getting closer!