I'd chop 'em all off just above the crown and keep the soil damp, but not wet. WHILE you repot, it's important to keep the roots constantly wet. That means you need to be dipping them in a tub of water at least every minute, or removing the old soil with water pressure. The all-important fine roots dry out and die quickly unless you stay on top of keeping them wet. AFTER the repot, it's important that you keep the soil moist where it's occupied by the roots, That might mean watering every day until the roots start to colonize the deeper part of the pot. Other than that, you'll need to get a feel for how many fine roots you must leave to support the water needs of the top of the plant. I regularly remove up to 90% of a plant's roots during a repot and I almost never ever lose a plant unless it blows out or an animal helps it out of the pot. Al

I don't know if it's corrosion of your water heater (unless the sacrificial anode has failed or is missing) but your water pressure is a likely culprit for the premature failure. "Normal" water pressure is around 60psi, 70-odd is good, but your water heater will be rated for a MAX of 100psi. The T&P valve on the tank did its job and should have been leaking from day 1 if that pressure has been like that - it's almost double the max. You should also get into the habit of lifting that little lever on the relief valve monthly or so, and letting some water run out. If it doesn't stop straight away, leave it a while, if it keeps dripping open it full up and let it run longer. This flushes out any material stuck in there and blocking it. It's very important to do this flushing, if the valve sticks, and you have high water pressure like that, (or even if you don't) you can get a dangerous buildup of pressure that can make it explode - you can even find video footage of it on youtube and mythbusters. What you should add (they are a good idea even if your water pressure is ok) is a pressure reducing valve like the link below - it will allow you to reduce your pressure to something manageable, the gauge your hubby bought will be handy. With a pressure reducing valve, you will also need an potable water (not the non-potable which are for boilers and underfloor heating) expansion tank for the hot water, it will also work as a shock absorber for the whole system like the hammer eliminators you get for the washing machine. Expansion tanks: http://www.watts.com/pro/_productsFull.asp?catId=64&parCat=325&pid=852&ref=2 With your pressure under control and an expansion tank you will get much longer service from your hw heater and other fixtures. The reason why your stuff is leaking may be a combination of the excessive pressure, your hw tank pressure relief valve may have been stuck, but the above is the answer. Let us know how you make out. You might enquire with the city what's up with the pressure, but it may be 'normal' to help cope with your neighbourhood demand. Here is a link that might be useful: Watts pressure reducing valve

Pre-filtration. You asked about a "big blue" filter. Certainly, if you have particulates in your water it is a good idea to filter them out upstream from your softener. For the size of your house, one 4"x10" filter will do nicely. I always recommend installing with a 3-valve bypass so that you don't have to shut down water to your home to change the filter. Pressure valves are also a good idea so you don't have to guess when to change your filters. Unless you have random events of high particulates, or just lots of particulate in general, you will likely be changing your filter on a time schedule rather than based on pressure drop. Filters should be changed every six months to avoid bacterial contamination. Softener size. Since you have indicated that you are careful with your water, can I assume you would like to maximize water efficiency with your softer? If this is the case, coupled with the fact that you have city water, longer times between regeneration is a good thing. Provided you don't have particulates in your water (which you won't with pre-filtration), you can safely extend time between regeneration to three weeks with no ill effects. There will be less stress on your resin. A 1.5 cubic ft softener will be just right. It will regen approximately every 15 days with three people in your household, and every 12 days when you increase your family size to 4. Caveat: Before making a final decision on softener size, we should take a look at your full water analysis to ensure there aren't any other issues to consider. Valve brand. I consider Fleck and Clack valves to be pretty much the same regarding reliability and ease of use. I'm not fond of Autotrol. It's not that it's a bad valve, but it does not give the end-user as much control over regen settings. Resin type. You want 10% crossLINKED, not cross over resin. Alternatively, Purolite SST-60 is quite resistant to chlorine attack. Your vendor is confused if he thinks he can offer you Aldex SST-60 because there is no such thing. If he as actually talking about Purolite SST-60, that will be a great choice for you. Because the size distribution is so tight and the inner core is inert, SST-60 can regen using quite a bit less water. There is no reason for you to use fine mesh resin. Drain location. I do not recommend plumbing it to your floor drain if it simply goes to ground. It is unlikely to be capable of handling the fairly rapid influx of water from a softener regen. Plumb it to your septic. Kitchen faucet. If you choose to bypass your kitchen faucet, you will get hardness buildup in that faucet, the sink and the dishwasher (if you have a standard installation where the DW is plumbed off of the water line to the sink). Unless you are under doctor's orders to consume a very low sodium diet, there is no reason not to use soft water for cooking. If you object to the taste of soft water (lots of folk do, including me), you can either plumb a single line upstream from the softener to a separate drinking water faucet, or install an RO. This post was edited by aliceinwonderland_id on Mon, Apr 7, 14 at 11:33

The concept of pressure as it relates to the residential water distribution system is without question the most miss-understood topic in all of plumbing. We constantly see questions posted regarding pressure and invariably someone will suggest going to Lowes or Home Depot and getting one of the little pressure gages with a hose thread attachment, then measuring your line pressure, as if that would yield any usable information. In truth, those gages only read "Static head pressure" which is the pressure on the system when all valves and faucets are closed and there is no flow, however, the performance of your showers or fixtures is dependent upon "Dynamic Pressure" or what is more commonly known as "Working Pressure" or "Flow Pressure". In order to effective measure dynamic head pressure we would need to install a Tee at the point where the fixture is attached to the water distribution system and measure the line pressure as the water passes the gage and into the fixture. IN one of my previous posts I described how the static head pressure on the municipal main can vary by changes in elevation. The same is true of the water in your house distribution system. Let us consider a two story house where the water main is located near the floor in a basement. While we may measure 45psi static head pressure at the main we must remember that the water will loose 0.434psi per vertical foot of rise. This loss is technically defined as "Vertical Static Head". In addition to vertical static head we must also consider the "Friction head loss" which results from friction between the moving water and the internal wall of the pipe. Thus "Dynamic Head Pressure" can theoretically be estimated by computing the vertical static head loss and the friction head loss, then subtracting the losses from the static head pressure at the main. let us put this in perspective. Imagine a house where the water enters the basement 1' above the basement floor and the basement has an 8' ceiling. We have a 7' rise to the ceiling, then a 1' rise for the floor joists and flooring material on the 1st floor. Now let us assume the house has 9' ceilings on the first floor and another foot for the floor joists to the second floor. We then have another 6' rise from the 2nd flr floor level to the shower head so our combined vertical head loss is (7'+1"+9+1'+6") x 0.434psi = 24' vertical x 0.434+ 10.416psi vertical static head loss. This means that if you had 45psi static head pressure at the main you would have 45psi - 10.41psi vertical static head loss = 34.59psi at the shower head. From this we must then deduct "Friction Head loss" however, computing friction head loss is not nearly as simple as computing vertical static head loss simply because as the velocity of flow increases on a pipe, the friction head loss will increase proportionally. now let us imagine that the water main is at the front of the house but the master bath is at the rear corner where we would have a 50' horizontal run of pipe plus the 24' vertical rise for a total of 74' of pipe. If we were to be precise we would need to also compute the fitting insertion loss for each fitting on the run. By example, a 1/2" elbow has a fitting insertion loss equal to .9 feet of pipe. W could compute all the fitting losses or we can rely upon the code approved standard of allowing an addition 20% for the pipe length. Thus our pipe length is now 74' + 20% = 1.2 x 70= 84'. Now let us imagine the we have a 1/2" copper pipe running directly from the main to the master bath. Now let us consult the copper pipe friction head loss table. In a 1/2" copper pipe with a flow rate of 1gpm the friction head loss is 0.008psi per linear foot of pipe thus the friction head loss to the master bathroom at a flow rate of 1gpm would be 84' x 0.008psi= 0.672psi. Not enough to really be concerned with, but let us examine what happens if we turn on the shower at 2.5gpm and the lavatory at .5gpm. The flow is now 3gpm and the friction head loss is 0.161psi per foot x 84' =13.54psi friction head loss. In this example, even though we had the code minimum 45psi static head pressure at the main, because the line was improperly sized to the master bath the resultant "dynamic head Pressure" at the shower would now be 45psi minus (10.41 vertical static head loss + 13.54psi Friction head loss) or 45psi - 23.95psi loss = 21.05psi. Even this would not be a big problem for conventional shower mixers because they are rated to perform with a minimum of 8psi and a flow rate of 3gpm, however, we commonly hear complaints from homeowners that they did a remodel on their bathroom where they removed a conventional mixer and replaced it with a pressure balancing mixer. A pressure balancing mixer requires a minimum of 20psi dynamic head pressure at a flow rate of 3gpm. From our example you can see that the new shower mixer requires 20psi while we only have at best 21.05psi available. Needless to say, if anyone were to run water anywhere in the house, the resultant pressure to your pressure balancing mixer would not be sufficient for it to operate properly, and sadly enough, most people get on the phone to the mixer dealer or manufacturers complaining their product is no good. Please believe me when I say, there is no guesswork in plumbing and although you may feel confident that you will save a pile of money by doing it all yourself, this is a prime example where you really should consult the services of a plumber, if for nothing else but to plan your layout. This is also why in most jurisdictions you may perform maintenance on a system without pulling a permit, but all new work, whether it is building a house from scratch or simply doing a major rehab requires all the proper computations and pulling a permit before the work may commence.