Steve, Are you serious about Peonies liking slightly Alkaline soil? Well my clay soil mixed w/ compost should be perfect then! Shoot I wish I had read your reply before I fixed the baby Peony situation. I just opted for the least disturbant method and ran to Green Thumb to get some top soil. After talking to the "Expert" he recommend the soil for Camellia and Gardenia which is acidic! That was what I used to cover the roots of the baby peony. I knew I should have asked you guys and not some dude at a gardening center! Well... it rained last night and soil is nice and mixed in now. I guess time will tell how sturdy this baby girl is. Good thing I have not had the time to plant the two bigger plants. I think I will just stick with compost mixed in with the native soil. Can I add some pumice to help drainage or no? Last question Steve, if the Itoh's roots grow so compactly and I planted them in the ground then I don't have to pull them up and divide for a few years right? I CANNOT keep plants alive in pots to save my life! Everything I planted in the ground thrive everything in pots died. So I am very hesitant to keep anything potted. Plus that's a lot more work to me. And I need things easier. Thanks! Lynn

It IS frustrating! Drove me nuts till I fired my builder and took over building myself. When you have a cost-plus contract, it seems to me to be totally contrary to the contract for the builder to tack ANY additional amount on to the price his subs charge him. Your agreement was to pay his costs PLUS a percentage of that amount to him as profit. You did not agree to pay his costs plus some undetermined amount that HE tacks on (a hidden profit) PLUS a percentage of both those amounts as his profit. And, if you have a fixed price contract with allowances for certain items, you should be able to spend up to that amount where ever you want to purchase the items covered by the allowance. If you go over you pay the extra. If you come in under the allowance amount, you should at least be able to apply the extra to some other allowance item. The only possible case where I think materials subs might have a reason not to provide you with the cost of the items you're interested in is if your contract is a fixed fee without allowances and your builder has told you "go in an choose from among the options that I have pre-approved." In that case, you don't really have much selection but the builder needs to make sure that there is SOMETHING available that will meet the requirements of the contract. (i.e., at least ONE kitchen faucet is available - whether you like it or not is beside the point.) What I found is that, once I was GC-ing my own build, I didn't have any problems getting prices. And nobody asked me to prove that I was the GC. Until I was ready to buy, they didn't even require me to have a "business account." So, next time, try going in and tell the subs you are GC-ing a home for yourself and you want to price options. Do not mention your builder's name. Tell them that for estimation purposes, a "straight" price without any "builder-promo" deal is fine because you're not going to be ready to build for another couple of months so that will give you a cushion in case prices go up in the meantime. Lay you odds that you'll get the info you want. That will at least give you some idea of which choices are the more expensive ones and which ones are likely to be within your budget. You can stop wasting your time looking at anything that is more than 20% or more above your budget. Then, once you've picked out things you like, you can ask if they give builders a promo-deal and what you would need to do to qualify. Once you have that info, you'll have a pretty good idea of what the cost to your builder is. Walk away with all the info you need on what you want and give that to your builder to order from. And, for allowance items, YOU SHOULD RECEIVE A COPY OF THE INVOICE for the items purchased. Ask the builder to have the supplier send a copy directly to you. He may balk but point out to him that there is no other way you can know how much over or under the allowance you went and that, as a businessman, he should understand that you have to have documentation for your expenses just as he does.

Hi guys Holdencommodore here! pasting the link for you here to see; http://www.miele.com.au/index1.asp?page=./products/products.htm then look for the NAVITRONIC W 3985 WPS Then Australia doesnt have the W4800, so.....! Give and take hey! Looking to buy the US W4800 but due to small limited space in my home for a laundry machine looks like Im stuck with the W1215, love to know why its so more expensive than the larger W4800.....interesting! Just to let you know guys and ladies the new W1215 is a 5kg capacity compared to the past model was a 6kg, interesting. the past model was also 220V but now its US Standard 120v.....hmmmm, interesting again. Well all I can say is take a min to pat yourself on the back ladies and gentlemen, because we are the ones looking after the environment (water wise) with using front loaders compared to top loaders! Take care everybody!

Didn't like the other forum, huh?