g'day terran, good illistrations but being manipulated in my books. i'm no believer in this furphy climate change thing, yes the climate is changing but not in that way as is promoted. those pictures realy show the results of man's greed and mismanagement and lack of understanding of the habitat, it has been occuring long before this C/C thingy was made popular. and not just the results of mismangement in that local area the mismangement up in our state and along the way adds to it as it is from up here that the rains should fall and rivers run to fill that basin, and that is simply not happening now for around 20 or so years, flood rains that is. that is 1000's of kilometers of silted up winding water courses. basically the the manipulation of the snowy river and the holding up of water in locks to provide hydro' power for the power station they built at the same time plus the rampat spread of agriculture and its' insattiable thirst for water. what is not shown is the rising salt affected mega acres all due to agriculture without controls. that area was our food bowl but no more just acres and aces of devistation. yes a picture might speak a thousand words but are they the correct words? i live a long way north up the east coast, but this agricultural and forestry along with development destruction goes on up here until the last tree falls. len

How did a question about wasting turn into a slam-fest? Everyone does things that are wasteful as well as conservative. I still have old lightbulbs that have not burned out yet, and CFLs in the ones that have. I have a plasma TV, a new microwave, a jacuzzi and a crockpot. The crockpot is used around 1-2 times a month and I love it in those instances. I drive a truck, don't have a clothesline and use my air conditioner. I recycle religiously. I conserve water, pick up trash in parking lots, give anything away that could possibly be used again, use freecycle and drag my scrap paper from work home (with my boss's permission)for my daughter to color on. I turn off lights if I'm not in the room. I turn off the water when I brush my teeth. I also fly back to my homestate of Hawaii 2600 miles away(and fly my daughter back) using tons of jet fuel. Before we throw stones at our neighbors try googling Al Gore's house and George Bush's house for a shocking comparison of energy waste/conservancy. It just goes to show we all make choices. Acknowledging that we are making a choice when we expend/reduce energy use is the first step towards using less. That person who uses old bulbs and a crockpot may recycle everything, drive 50 miles a month in a tiny car and not use plastic. As a side note, I grew up 30 miles from the nearest town, where we didn't have a Wal-mart/Kmart/Costco or anything similar. Due to bad roads it took over an hour to get there, once we made the 1/2 hour trip down our 4wd road to get to the highway. We had catchment tanks for water, and the water went right down the sink and onto the trees on the side, outhouses, solar and kerosene for light. I got my clothes from the "free box" at our local co-op, and we bought our food in bulk. We had no refrigerator/freezer/television/radio/appliances except for a gas stove, and that was used by ten or so people in a community kitchen. The shower was a hose attached to a tree. When we got hot water, it was from a paloma, and we took "Navy" showers. (Some habits die hard, I still take 5 minute showers and turn the water off when shaving, etc). Our homes were made out of recycled lumber and bamboo, with every scrap used. We'd go to town once a week for supplies, and we'd carpool with neighbors to get there. You may be imagining someone living like this pre- 1950. I'm 30. I've lived in San Diego for two years now and enjoy having air conditioning. I think that frugality is only as good as quality of life. Awareness and compassion for why people are living the lives they choose is essential. When people tease me for saving every last drop of water I remind them the mentality I grew up with...When you are constantly conscious that the water you are using can be depleted and there is no way to get a water truck to fill the tank up you use a lot less! Sorry.... I just grew up more frugal than most people could ever imagine, so the argument about bulbs, etc. is just silly to me. Try using a kerosene lantern at night to do anything. We got everything done during daylight hours, believe me! Wear them until they're standing on their own, then wash clothes by hand, wring them out with a foot powered wringer. Don't use any pesticides, herbicides, anything not organic. Wash your hair with fresh Awapuhi ginger. Live in harmony with the bugs around you... misquitoes, cockroaches (we'd call them B-52 bombers), you name it- and the way we killed them was with our feet and hands. This was in the rainforest, with 100' trees, 1-2' vines, giant tree ferns. There was mold. On everything. So, after venting! The waste I see every day (personal pet peeves): 1. Watering giant lawns that no one ever sits on 2. Private swimming pools 3. Eating food out of season 4. Throwing away plastic containers

hex2006- Just 4 times a day? Is that the practice? I've heard about switching on/off every 15/30 mins and that sounded somewhat less than optimal to me... If you flood the roots for 15 mins, wouldn't that be too much for many plants? Conversely, leaving it to dry for 6 hours, isn't that detrimental or at least stressful for many varieties (and even if there is enough moisture, does the plants have enough access to nutrients)? Jeremiah- Yeah, the power consumption was high on my priorities when I considered hydroponics. It's not like I'm gonna sell the produce but I am in a dire lack of excess money to burn- that's why the pump power consumption actually did seemed important to me (unless I'm growing weed then that is a whole different matter). I calculated that if a simple 10W pump ran for 24/7, 365 days, it would amount to 87.6KW. I pay 20c for KW/h, so a yearly cost would be around 17.52$. The price of tomatoes at my local market is a little more than 1$ per kg. That means that simply to cover the usage cost of this one pump I need to grow more than 15kg. You can see why I'm not a fan of letting the pump work more than it needs to. Lol, I missed your meaning, when you said "making the box water tight " ,did you mean the timer box or the grow box? because in both cases I just use a discarded bucket/cereal box with some water proof glue on the lid. Ghetto to the max! And when you say “digital plug timers” you are referring to this type of thing?: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-LCD-Display-24H-7day-Programmable-Timer-Electronic-Plug-Switch-110V-US-/361252796244 If so, then like the with my opening post, they have up to x powerons per day. Very annoying. , , , The second scenario you described is actually pretty nifty, but I fail to see the advantage if indeed rapid switching will burn out the pump. My case however is the common first scenario (mostly because of space constrictions (the sun is at the top)). I don't know if it is that 'rapid', but if the pump fills the bucket in 4 minutes (and turned off due to power conservation) and the drying occurs for another 11 mins- then we are talking about 90 cycles per day (I have no idea if that is a good growing practice, but speaking hypothetically). I took your warnings about the quick burnout to heart, but I'm not sure what's the alternative in an ebb-flow system (other than cycling it to 2 operations per hour). One thing I thought of changing is the placement of the pump. according to Kleeems explanation ,a partial cause for the failing is the column of water already present in the pipes, overloading at each start up. Seems like it can be solved by placing the pump in an upside fashion near the top... thanks guys.

No, the difference b/w a prep sink and a bar sink is not location, the difference is size. Bar sinks are usually shallow, small sinks - sometimes as small as 9" or 10" wide and only 6" or 7" deep. Prep sinks, OTOH, are deeper and wider. They should be at least 15" wide - interior width, not overall width, and as deep as a larger sink - 8" to 10" or more (bottom of sink to top of counter). Mine is 15-3/4" square and 10" deep. Prep sinks should require at least an 18" sink base (for the sink to be big enough), and even better would be a 21" or 24" sink base. Bar sinks don't have to be that big b/c they're primarily used for filling/emptying/rinsing glasses and the like. Prep sinks need to be bigger b/c you're prepping food - which means there needs to be enough room for the food + your hands + any tools you use while prepping. Location, though, will determine how you use it, so even if you have a decent size prep sink, if you put in the wrong place it will probably not be used or it will be used for other uses (maybe even as a bar sink!) I'm chuckling at all the comments about how much space people have but adamantly refuse to put in a prep sink. Whether you actually need one or not, I cannot say b/c I don't know your layouts, but so many people put in large amounts of counterspace that is a waste of far more money than an extra sink will cost b/c the counters are located where they're useless - whether b/c there's no logical work zone in that location or b/c there's no water source to make it work. Those counters then become very expensive drop/clutter zones or maybe just dust collectors! I reiterate - just b/c you work a particular way today, doesn't mean you can't make it better with a better layout in the future nor does it mean that you will work the same way if you have a different layout. Yes, it may be all you know, and something that you've made do with for years - after all, human beings are very adaptive, we can make do with almost anything, regardless of how bad something it is. We're also resistant to change and new ideas and we often have a hard time seeing other ways to do things - even if they would be so much better! We hang on to what we know and either can't see the better or don't want to b/c we're convinced that we want can be had b/c someone has convinced us it will work when it really won't (like those islands that people cannot fit with adequate aisles & seating overhang b/c someone told them they could skimp on either or both and "it'll be fine" - those someones who often have a monetary gain b/c of that island or b/c they don't have to live with it, so talk is cheap and it makes you happy to hear them say it). That's why places like this Forum with people who can look at layouts objectively and give good critiques are so important and invaluable. There are several people here who can give you good advice and even do layouts for you. (No, not all advice is necessarily good advice and if you read enough layout threads you will learn which posters are better at layouts than others....ditto for aesthetic advice, while I will do layouts, I generally stay out of aesthetic threads b/c I'm not the best at aesthetics - others are far better!) Anyway, this whole prep sink discussion, while interesting in some cases, has brought out an interesting mix of people. Oh, and I don't recommend roughing in a prep sink at a particular location b/c you don't know where it might be needed in the future - so there's no point to it. If you know you are going to put one in in a particular location in the future, fine, but I wouldn't do it "just b/c".