We're not using any heat at the moment although we had an electric space heater turned on at night in the living room for a few evenings in November. At the moment it's just after midnight and the temperature indoors is 22C (just over 71F) so it's really comfortable. We sleep with windows wide open summer and winter, unless there's a lot of wind when I have to close them. I put flannelette sheets on the bed in winter and we sleep with feather duvets year round except on the hottest nights of summer. Our bedroom is on a shady side so it's always cool for sleeping. We haven't put on the central heating yet this year as it's been so mild. As we're accustomed to mild weather we become real wimps on the occasional cold spell. (Cold is around 60F for us.) We see the tourists dressed in shorts and flip flops and we (meaning most long term residents) dress in jackets, leather boots and neck scarves. You can tell who are residents and who have come here on holiday by the sharp difference in their clothing on a cooler day. But winter evenings here call for socks, long pants, sleeves and sometimes a pullover sweater. We watch TV with woolen rugs over our legs and cats on our laps and if it turns chilly we may turn on some heat as well. SharonCb

I personally have no problem with a customer following me around. I prefer to educate them on certain items they can do themselves. A little communication goes a long way to make a user feel warm and fuzzy as long as they don't get in the way. I have clients that only need me or one of my techs. to come around every 3 years or so to do real maintenance and checks. The residential maintenance agreements do help me keep technicians busy during gaps in the schedules. I actually have clients who want someone to come out and change their filters. Most are elderly or afraid to touch anything. We usually try to schedule those when a tech. is going to be passing by and we can do it gratis if the customer provides the filter. It's amazing how that "value added" service has helped business. But as you can see, for some people those maintenance agreements are worthwhile to some while others can save their money and do certain things themselves. Of course, for commercial clients, it's cheaper for them to buy an agreement than it is to hire someone full time to do it. And what's great is they can call the shop, ask questions and if the office Administrator can't answer a question (she does great), a tech. will call back. Even many handy types buy the agreement just to have resources (we also sell parts). These extras have allowed me to pretty much lock in whole neighborhoods.

Fruitnut, fortunately I have not had the experience you describe using the swamp cooler in another greenhouse. When the swamp cooler is on there has been plenty of venting and I've been able to keep the temp at 95 or below when its been as high as 115 outside. I think the venting has been the key to this. Golden, originally I was thinking the same as you but my research indicates that using outside air is better because adding humidity between the poly layers could decrease the life expectancy of the poly. Something else that made sense to me was that once the inflation is completed, there isn't going to be much exchange of the layer of air between the poly layers. I'm still open to ideas but as of now I'm going with the outside air. I am going to add a filter to the outside air intake though because when it gets windy here it kicks up a lot of dust which dust I also don't want in between the poly layers. What do people generally use for their inflation? I see various inflation kits all over the internet ranging from $113 to around $200. Any suggestions as to a good kit to get?

An update.....yesterday the chrysalis of the first cat I brought home turned dark, and this morning he hatched. I let him dry his wings for an hour, and I had to leave. Not wanting him to flutter around his small enclosure, I took him with me in the car, with the sunroof open and windows closed to prevent too much airflow. A little over an hour after we left, I got back in the car and found him starting to move around in his bowl. I took off the top band he had been hanging from, and he came up and out, settling on a door armrest. Rather than risk catching one of his legs on the window as it went down, I put my finger near him. He grabbed onto it, and I lifted him up to the sunroof. He flew out on his own, off into the clear blue sky. And I went back home to work on the next ones.... Vince