Dorothy, Your moisture must be here at my house. My soil is still so wet just an inch below the surface in the unplanted parts of my garden that I can't plant in them yet. I am sure it will dry up if we don't get rain by mid-April and you know how clay is--it stays wet forever but once it is dry, it is really dry. We still have standing puddles from the last rainfall, but they have dried up a lot the last couple of days and likely will be gone in a couple of days. I am planting very heavily now hoping for good, early yields and will not try to keep all of it alive past June if no rain is falling. I'm just not going to spend a lot of money on irrigation this year. We've had plenty of moisture here, so I am not worried yet. Dawn

all bugs are "beneficial" - there are dozens of organisms that are a normal part of the decomposition process and avoidance of most requires maintaining certain conditions - drier is better, especially right at the surface, within the limits of what the worms need food waste of any kind [including carrots, orange peel, celery, Carmania] has a very high water content and needs to be combined with absorbant carbon, especially some that will keep the structure open to air circulation .... if you add a 'large amount' of food waste at once then leave it, the mass will quickly become anaerobic and soon be a liquid mess to cause the problems seen the best bet for leaving a worm bin unattended for long periods is to leave only scattered small amounts of feedstock and put the bin in the coolest location you can with a cover to slow evaporation, the worms can do fine re-processing the bedding material for a long time Bill

Eternally wet shower floors are usually the result of the membrane being placed flat on the subfloor, then a sloped layer of mud is placed on the flat membrane, then the tile going over the sloped mud. A flat membrane is bad practice and a code violation. Code requires that the membrane itself be sloped. This usually means a sloped layer of deck mud on the subfloor, then the membrane goes over the sloped mud, then another layer of mud goes on top of the sloped membrane. When the two-part clamping drain is installed, there are secondary weep holes along the throat of the drain. The intent is that any moisture that gets under the grout/tile and into the mud bed beneath the tile will hit the sloped membrane, then travel down the slope (code min 1/4" per foot, code max 1/2" per foot, with 1/4" per foot being standard) to the drain. The moisture will go through the secondary weep holes and down the drain. Normal practice is that when placing the second layer of deck mud (the layer that goes on top of the sloped membrane) the installer will first place a bit of small stone or tile spacers near the weep holes, then pack the deck mud around the stone/spacers. If not done, deck mud that is packed right up over the weep holes can clog the weep holes, and slow or prevent moisture water from escaping. As to the cracked grout lines at the changes of plane, that's why changes of plane (wall-wall intersections, etc) are usually caulked instead of grouted in lightweight shower construction. Here's a good reference on how to do a sloped membrane on a shower floor: Harry at Ontario Tile Sealing tile is sort of superfluous. In general, unless it's handmade or some sort of artisan tile, porcelain tile itself is pretty much waterproof. I'm not a fan of sealing grout, but that's my personal preference. If grout is sealed, a vapor permeable sealer should be used. Lastly, and going backwards a bit, cracked grout around a bench can sometimes indicate poor waterproofing. Thin hairline cracks can indicate movement cracks, but if the cracks are wide, it can sometimes indicate wet and swollen wood underneath the tile. The swelling of the wood is causing excessive movement, and thus, larger than typical cracks. Again, supposition on my part, but based on the nasties I've seen over the years...I'm simply putting them out there for your consideration.

You need to look at the construction of the attic ventilation system above the insulation. You indicated they put the channels in and left a gap for airflow, prior to insulating the rafter bay. In order to get condensation in the attic, it takes two things, Presence of moisture and a condensing surface. Obviously, there is moisture present, and the source will need to be identified, but what baffles me, is that a conditioned attic (heated) remains cool enough to have a condensing surface on the heated side of the insulation. Have you looked into the insulation and up onto the baffle that was installed? It is my guess that by installing the baffles continuous from top to bottom, that they possibly did more harm than good, particularly if the channels are continuous or sealed. They certainly have a ventilation channel, but you need to consider the reasoning for that ventilation channel. Attic ventilation first and foremost (at least in my heating climate)is to relieve the attic of moisture. The other reason is to relieve the attic of excessive heat in the summer time. With the insulation at the rafter level instead of the attic floor, they will need to have a continuous(sealed) vapor barrier or a dual purpose air barrier, such as drywall (ADA Approch). Kraft facing is not an adequate vapor barrier.retarder, in this application. Couple this with warming the attic temp, should alleviate the problem, but dont do it by simply warming the attic without the sealed vapor barrier or you will just drive the moisture deeper into the insualtion system. With the types of temperature differentials this winter has provided us, problems are going to arise, that didnt happen last year, irregardless of how many occupants were there last year.