Wobur, Just curious, do I understand correctly that you have kept this plant in water for 15 years? What is the volume of roots? What is the size of the container? Have you ever root pruned it? I may have an idea to ease the transition. Acquire two plastic containers, one that fits inside the other. Drill/poke holes in the smaller container. Put the smaller one inside the larger and then put your plant into the inner pot and refill with water. Now you can begin to gradually add a gritty bonsai mix. After the roots are covered you can begin to let the water evaporate slowly until the transition is complete. Finally remove the inner pot from the outer. If you have ever root pruned this plant there may be an advantage in doing so again before you begin this process. In this way you will be starting out with fresh roots. I have never been in this situation before but I seem to remember reading about a process similar to this. Norm

no problem at all .... surprised i remembered.. lol ... it was the blue house that triggered the memory ... hey ... wait.. the house isnt blue anymore.... lol ... are you handy enough to take it down for free???? pine is very soft ... get a great pruning saw .... climb up to the 4 leaders .... SAFELY cut those off ... while up there.. attach a good piece of rope .... climb down .... notch it in the direction you want it to fall ... get someone to grab rope on that side.. and start cutting from the other side.. while they begin to pull ... and have them safely guide the fall.. away from the deck ... THIS IS NOT A 'TIMBER' UNCONTROLLED FALL ... if not within your ability.. hire someone to make it fall down ... personally .. i would then add some retention block around the deck.. and backfill with good soil for a nice garden ... investing the money in the garden.. rather than paying to grind out the stump ... the stump will rot over time.. and probably provide years of mushroom entertainment ... good luck ken

For $4000 he thinks you "might" have a solution? Wow. Did the guy do a heat/loss analysis? He wants to give you the same size furnace. What is the continuous flow option? Is that a variable speed blower? I think a VS blower run all the time will help to even out temps, but what i cannot get is that an 80k system is having a hard time heating 1200ft of space. My whole house is heated with a 100k system and its 1800ft. I never have more than a 3 degree temp diff btw floors if at all. I did however focus on insulation and draft blocking (real cheap to do) to get that. Heat wise is there something special about that bedroom that it wont heat? Ductwork issues: loose boot at register or going thru uninsulated walls? What does the room look like. Are there dropped ceilings is it under an attic space etc. Are the walls insulated or does it have a million windows. So many questions and probably cheaper to find solutions to your problem than dishing out 4k.

I know there are fans out there of coal stokers, which no one will argue make use of a cheap and plentiful fuel. Unfortunately, coal probably just isn't the best choice for many homeowners, unless they're willing to deal with the extra chores that a coal heating system entails. Someone will have to haul the ash and cinder out of the basement and dispose of it, and someone still has to operate the clean-out lever on a regular basis, and then, of course, there's the occasional stoppages in the the stoker to be cleared. There's also a space consideration. you're either going to need a silo or you'll need to have a basement with sufficient square footage and head room for coal storage. A ton of rice anthracite takes up about 40 cubic feet of space. Then you need room for the feed mechanism and the furnace/boiler -- plus sufficient space around them for servicing. And finally, let's not forget a place for the delivery truck to back up to a coal chute. Die-hard coal-stokers will think this is all worthwhile, but let's face it, most homeowners don't want the bother. Oil or natural gas may cost more....but they're so much simpler. The original poster said that she burned nearly 1,500 gallons of oil last year while keeping her house at a less than comfortable (at least for most people) temperature of 65F during evening hours. While the numbers she mentioned for upgrading her present system sounded rather daunting (and perhaps on the high side) , if she can reduce her heating costs significantly and raise the thermostat a few degrees with a modern gas condensing boiler and she plans to stay in the house for the foreseeable future, I'd say it's worth looking into, especially if her state or local utilities are offering any incentives or rebates. If she's owned the home for many years, there could be some tax benefit as well. It's possible that all or some portion of the cost of a new boiler could be treated as a capital improvement, effectively raising her cost basis on the house. If she were to ever sell the house at a significant gain (exceeding her exclusion), she might recoup some of her investment through savings on capital gains tax. Then, of course, there's that good feeling you get every time you open the gas bill -- and it's about half of what your old oil bill used to be!