Unfortunately the wood did not arrive today. Shipping company screw-up. Their delay is costing me a lot of money. Grrrrrrr John, how much information can you condense in four lines? Gosh man, I had to read your response many times to get it through my skull. Ken and John, you guys are awesome. Here is an idea for you: Get together and write a book. I'm sure it'll be a hit. There are gazillion books about Âghow to build a deckÂh. But there are no books about handling different kinds of woods, decking tips, maintaining decks, gazebos, etc! I know you guys donÂft agree on 100% of the issues, but it would better than super cool and advantageous to deck-dummies like myself to see how two top notch experts like you two disagree on few issues and yet agree on so many other ones. IÂfm warning you, if you donÂft do it, IÂfm going to mine your collective experience from this forum and make that book myself. DonÂft worry; you will take most of the royalties ï Thank you again. I will keep you posted as I progress. Surely I will have to keep admiring the framing until the decking material is here. Meanwhile, I'm gonna place the order for RAD. Thank you Ken. Curious, The Son of Due

Alex, AFGD is the primary North American division of Asahi Glass Company (AGC) the largest glass company in the world. AFG is primarily a commercial rather than residential glass supplier but, as you have found out, they obviously have a residential division as well. Knowing who made the IGU (insulating glass unit) doesn't tell you who made the window, unfortunately. Also, AFG has used several different types of spacer systems and depending on what system they used in the manufacture of your IGU could make a difference in the longevity of the unit. I won't get into the specific details of IGU construction, but there are systems that routinely offer 20 year warranty against seal failure and are quite successful at maintaining intact IGU's in the field. Unfortunately, there are also systems out there that have failure rates at better than 10% or more...in windows, as in many other parts of life, you often get what you pay for...or in your case, what someone else paid for. Lower end windows often have no more than a 5-year seal warranty. Some builder grade windows offer no warranty at all. Often lower-end and builder-grade windows will have no manufacturer information on them anywhere. On some units there may be information on the inside of the frame or on the edge of the sash, but that does you no good since these are fixed units and you can't see the edge of the sash. You can try contacting AFGD directly, but they will probably tell you that you have to contact the window manufacturer directly...which may be difficult if you can't determine where these windows came from. I wish I could offer better advice, but unfortunately that's about what it is. You might also try contacting the home builder or even talk to a few neighbors if you are in a development and any neighbors have the same builder. Good luck, Alex, and again I wish I had something better to offer.

Hmm. I did travertine tile counters and backsplash diy and no one ever told me I needed to clean the tiles with a cleaner before sealing. Where did you read that? Maybe I was supposed to, but I didn't and everything worked out fine. I did "clean" the dust off of them prior to sealing by wiping them all down with a damp rag (just water). Then I let them dry, then sealed twice with a sealer/enhancer prior to installing them. Actually, one of the counters I sealed after I installed them for time factor but the ones I did prior to install look better I think, FWIW. You can do it either way. If you're doing a backsplash, it would probably be easier to seal prior to install to avoid the drips. Sealing is a messy smelly job, but I found it went pretty quickly and was actually kind of zen to do. :-) Each individual tile had to be wiped to get the excess sealer off and to get a smooth shine, so I think leaning across a counter to do this on a backsplash would be hard on the back and arms (but that's just me). YMMV. Here is a link that might be useful: Travertine tile pics

Posted by greasetrap There was also an interesting comparison of Wolf vs. BS burners by a place called Eurostoves. _____ Keep in mind these are marketing videos made to sell BS. These burners are not made by Wolf at present but the dual stacked burners are. "The heat is thrown to the side of the pan" You have to look at how you cook. If you put a 5 inch pan on the Wolf burner and turn it up all the way the flame might go around the pan, but who does that? This happens on the BS too later in the video. Personally I would switch it to the small pan burner on the Wolf (and Capital Culinarian) and use the smallest BS burner. I use a 7 inch sauce pan on my Wolf with mod heat on regular burners to make caramel and the pan heats evenly even though it is old Revereware with only 0.5 mm of copper. You really can't stir the caramel so it has to cook evenly. If it was a problem I could use the small pan burner. "Tiny simmer burner" If you use a heat conductive pan (copper or aluminum)this is not an issue but Wolf has the dual stacked burners of the same diameter now. He comments about the All Clad pans not being very good but Fissler being better. It very much depends on what line within the brands that you are talking about. There are good and bad in both. It is difficult to evaluate plied cookware as the amount of conductive metals inside is often an unknown. For highest performance you are better with thick copper or aluminum. If you look at the video, the 5 inch pan loses heat on the smallest star shaped burner. The wolf small pan burner is probably the best option. "You can simmer better on this because of more even heat" I would want to know the BTU rating to determine which will go the lowest. Temperature given by BS in relation to the burner means nothing. Along with the amount if BTUs temperature in the pan depends in the size, shape, metal the pan is made of and what you are cooking. Evenness can be provided by the cookware. The star shaped burner would be a help in providing even heat to something like cast iron or steel as long as the pan is properly sized to the burner. If you use the smallest star burner on large fry pan, having the heat to the center is uneven. Your ring burner might be better and more even in that case. BS does have a higher Btu rating on the high side. This is good for heating something faster. Water will boil a few minutes quicker. You can heat a cast iron pan hot enough to sear a steak on either. It will take a little longer to reach temperature on the Wolf but it will get hot enough to vaporize oil. Higher BTUs will help with recovery of heat in a pan when you add food. They have advantages or disadvantages depending on how you cook. You do have to look at marketing very carefully whether it is videos or cooking demos or whatever. Even though they are presented a "studies" or quasi science, look at who is presenting the info or paying for the...