In this area we have had a serious onslaught of lecanium scale, especially on oaks but now also many other species. The "one cure fits all" attitude has been suggested as the reason for the spread of lecanium - obscure scale on oaks was the initial plague so neighborhoods were doused with products for control; unfortunately populations of predatory insects were greatly reduced. Now, along comes lecanium, almost unhindered by the dearth of predatory insects and now even more species of trees are affected. A shingle oak in my yard has a heavy infestation of lecanium, and my treatment for two years has been...nothing. The tree looks fine. Inspection of the scales shows predatory action (entry holes in most of the scales). The point is, most of the time nature will take care of insect population imbalances by itself if we don't douse everything with products and mess with the natural cycle. Having said that, I agree with IpmMan that sometimes, to save a plant or tree it may need to be treated, but start with the environmentally gentlest solution and work up from there. More is less. hortster

Bringing up air from a basement that has not been checked for radon is not a good idea. It sounds like you have that covered. Is the basement dry or humid? If humid, it will add a more significant load than you might expect from the temperature. What kind of water heater do you have there? Depending on your climate and what you use to heat water, you could consider adding a heat pump water heater.

The real initiator of the high costs are the producers of the product who print the cost right on the envelope and suggest the expected sales price. Some countries just cut right to the chase and actually price their products on what they expect them to sell for. Our's has evolved into an intricate system of sales, and super sales and advertising to where a consumer never really knows what a product can be had for until they read the sales ads or shop in a store. It's gotten to where the simplest products are marketed like an automobile starting out with prices they don't expect anybody to pay and then spending huge amonts of money to mark it down. I waited until January to buy a whole wardrobe of clothing this year. I haven't really shopped for clothes for decades. I got everything off the racks at 70% markdown. The original tags on a ten dollar blouse were fifty dollars. No retailer really expects the public is going to pay that. And I don't think for a minute the retailer lost any money on their sales items. I have had to shop a box store for fabric in a pinch, and the quality on it was so poor, it curled and stank when I tried to press it. So, I don't shop there anymore. I also seldom pay full price at places like fabric stores. They're liberal with their coupons......bringing the cost of the fabric back down to box store prices. I have also found that the box stores sell some of their merchandise at higher prices than private stores. I know in my business I often undersell box stores and still make a profit, but my retail is so conditioned to thinking they'll get it cheaper at a box store they don't even consider coming to me first. I see the same phenomenon happening with restaurants in our community. There are only a hand-full of family owned restaurants left. They were as cheap or cheaper than the chains, and their food was just as good. They cannot afford to stick them in high traffic malls, and they cannot compete with the advertising dollars and now they're gone. I really quit shopping the box store fabric departments because I had to listen to their clerks continually whining about their pay and hours and how much they work when other employees are off hiding. I always left a fun shopping expedition in a foul mood.

Location is the most important thing for a warming drawer. Someone who is used to having one and can't imagine living without it can make do if it's at the bottom of an oven stack. For anyone else, that is a ridiculously inconvenient position. That doesn't sound like what you're talking about, but proper positioning is important even so. Wall ovens are usually placed outside of the work flow, because they don't take much attention. Warming drawers are the opposite--they should be smack dab front and center as much as possible without pushing aside something even more important--top level is most convenient, but you'll often see them under a utensil drawer because utensils are even more important to have where you can lay your hand on them. The best location depends on your needs and layout. The most favored possibilities are directly under or next to the cooktop, so it's easy to accumulate pancakes, or shift a pot of stew, or nearest to the eating area, so it's easy to serve and refill plates, or someplace on the path between the two to be less than perfect for both functions but not bad at either. As high as possible up to table height, to make it easy to get things in and out of. If you go for two, put them next to each other, or as close as you can, unless they're in completely different rooms for different functions. One by the stove and one by the eating area means running between the two as they fill up. It sounds much better in theory than most people will find in practice. One more thing to keep in mind is that 6" more width doesn't sound like a lot on the 30" vs. 24", but in practice, because of the way you can arrange things, it's likely to feel like it holds half again as much, rather than just a quarter. I agree with most of what Lascatx said, but it can make up for some lack of cooking space if you expect to cook in shifts and move things to the warming drawer. I've done that for feasts, and it can work for holidays. If by "big family dinners" you meant regularly, even once a week, it could be tedious, especially if larger ovens meant you could time it so everything came out at once. I rarely need to put bread dough in the warming drawer. If you have a cold kitchen, however, it works well. My ovens also have settings for rising bread. The point about the steam from slow cooking is good--you can slow cook in any warming drawer, even without the setting, but should you? Only you know the answer to that. Re models, I much prefer the really simple ones. They're foolproof, especially if there's an "on" light. They just do off and on and have a dial that changes the amount of power to control the approximate temperature. A $5 thermometer can check the exact temperature you're getting if you need to know--for slow cooking it is imperative that you get the heat of the middle of the food above the safety level by taking the temperature of the food, but if you're translating slow cooker recipes, you'll want to match up the approximate temperatures (non-digital slow cookers also adjust the power rather than having a specific temperature). Digitally controlled warming drawers work more like ovens where you can select a specific goal temperature (there's probably still a 25° variation from the set point). They also have features like automatic shut off after four hours (which you have to keep in mind if you think it's holding your food all day above the safety floor temp.) and "Sabbath Mode" lockouts that prevent the shut off but my also only do preset temperatures chosen by ritual custom. A useful gizmo is a steam vent. It's just a lever that opens and closes some slits that let steam out. Keep steam in to keep your meat from drying out. Let steam out so the crust on the bread you're heating will stay crunchy.