Hey just wanted to throw in my 2 cents and say that if you want a nice lawn listen to tiemco. I did a total renovation on my backyard last fall, which had been covered with leaves for the better part of a year prior (thanks previous owners!) leaving nothing but dirt and weeds behind. Following the advise of people like tiemco, gary in chicago, dchall, and others, lead me to a very sucessful renovation in a shady backyard. It sounds like you are taking the right steps. I would recommend slice seeding, unless you want to aerate again, in which case, you will have enough little holes and can just spread the seed with a broadcast spreader. Here's the lawn care program that I used over the past 12 months for what its worth: September - Aerate, seed, fertilize, lime, and topdress with some compost. This year I am not aerating and seeding, and instead am adding in a pre-emergent for poa annua and winter annuals like bittercress, which I had a lot of last year. None of this is difficult, you just put it in your broadcast spreader and walk. October - Fertilize (B/c my backyard is so shady, I use half as much fert as normal in the back) November - Fertilize (B/c my backyard is so shady, I use half as much fert as normal in the back) December - Lime. This year I am also planning to do a dormant overseeding for the few areas that are a little thin. That's also simple, all you do is load seed in your spreader and let Mother Nature bury the seed through the freeze/thaw cycle. Jan-Mar - Nothing. Although I might put down some starter fertilizer in March depending on the weather to give my dormant seeded grass some help. April - Fertilize (Only if I didn't already in March), lime, and apply crabgrass pre-emergent to sunny areas. May - Nothing June - Lime July-August - Nothing. Other than that you just have to mow it regularly and either spot spray weeds or pull them by hand. Most of the work is just laoding stuff up in your spreader and walking, which isn't too hard. Also keep an eye out for fungal diseases and/or bug problems and treat those immediately. The only thing I would change depending on what your soil test says is the number of times you lime. I live in an area with naturally very acidic soil, so I lime 3-4 times a year. I hope this helps.

Have you tried changing your Internet Explorer settings to accept the Active X control? Tools, Internet Options, Security, Custom Level... If you're using another browser check to see if there's a way to accept that particular Active X control. Rita

You might try going to the page where you get the active X issue and then opening IE Tools, Internet Options. Click the 'security' tab and then the 'Safe Sites' icon and putting that page address in the safe sites list. Maybe also drop the slider there down a notch in security if you continue to have a problem. Of just pick up the phone and call HP support. They probably hear this all day long.

OK, so if it's a garage, I assume that you don't want to heat that space so you want to insulate the top (under the slab). Again, typically I think extruded polystyrene is the right material for that although I'd be concerned about pressure from the vehicles on the garage floor. Never heard of using an earth box as a heat exchanger. Seems like there's risk of waste unless you insulate the box really well. Also, I don't really like the "one-way" engineering of an earth box (though I've got one of my own, not yet in service, and to be used for space heating, not for heat exchanging - my box is 12 in to 17 in deep and filled with compacted soil, though the pex tubing is embedded in a sand layer at mid-height of the box). If the pex ever gets damaged in that box, there's not way to fix it unless everything is torn out and you start over. I guess this is less of an issue for you since it's a garage. For me it's a finished family room. I didn't use any aluminum wrap - I don't see how that would help much - the heat still needs to get from the sand to the tubing and I don't see that anything will facilitate the process much. The reason why the book you have doesn't give specifics is because there's too much variability in the concepts. Again, a heat transfer calc needs to be done. Why don't you head over to the UC mechanical engineering department and see if there are any ace heat transfer students around who might run a quick calculation for a little extra cash. I think you could find a grad student in search of some extra beer money. I'd get serious with the idea before constructing.