Drainage: You have some heavy soil if the hole took 4-5 hours to drain. The one that took 8 hours must have been in hard pan clay. Just out of curiosity, how long did it take to blast...er, ah dig these holes? On the compost question, leaf mold is great for all plants and would be fine if you didn't have anything else to add to it to help break it down. Since you have everything you need to make loads of compost, I'd probably say throw them all in together and they may break down faster. Poking with the pitchfork doesn't do any good, if your back is strong go ahead and toss and turn it. If not, do what I do, let hubby do it. Ten years ago he used to come out and laugh at me when I was sweating over the compost pile. Then he got interested in the concept, then he took it over and now we have 8 bins and he churns out 500 lbs. of compost a year. that 'poor li'l ole me!' trick can work wonders if you use it right. Cheryl

You are on the right track, and now is a good time to do it. Bamboo like to be moist, but not in standing water; summer watering will be important. Planting in a mound would be good as it will make it easier to control rhizome growth in future years. However, I have some suggestions for you. First, I presume you have not dug bamboo before, and you may not realize that it's quite a job. It often is best if two people work on it together. In addition, there are some special techniques required that are different from digging up other plants. I'll email you some written instructions. Secondly, I'm going to discourage you from cutting off the culms. If you take a root ball and don't leave any aboveground growth, it may be a couple of years before the roots produce new culms, and when they do they will be small in height and diameter for a couple more years. If you expect to have a clump of bamboo that begins to resemble the stuff you want to dig up, in less than 5 years, you should leave one or more culms. If you can't transport something that tall, top the culm(s) as little as you can, and no more than half. Good luck.

Solid hardwood is milled straight from the tree. It is solid throughout (like a 2"x4" is). Engineered is like plywood, but made out of the type of wood that is advertised. Engineered Wood Flooring has roughly twice the dimensional stability with changes in climate (moisture and temp), and will expand and contract aboput half as much a solid wood flooring. Solid wood flooring can be refinished many many times. Engineered wood flooring has limited thickness to be sanded and refinished. If going with engineered and you are looking to the future for refinishing, I recommend a very hard wood to limit wear and denting. The Janka Wood Hardness Test is one of the best measures of a wood species ability to resist denting and wear, however, at some point a wood species choice may become harder than the finish going on it. This can prevent future sandings needed if it ever needs refinished, so a harder wood may be able to be screened and refinished saving time and money from sanding becasue of its hardness, where a softer wood that is worn and dented might need a resanding PLUS rerfinishing. Here is a janka hardwood list then you can reference that with the products you wish to view/buy Hardwood Flooring Wood Hardness Scale prefinished hardwood does not require sanding. Site finished does. Mowhawks hardwoods are prefinished so they do not require site finishing to be installed. However, some years down the road you may with to have them refinished If no retailers around you have felt led tips, get your felt at an arts and crafts store, rag shop, or sewing shop and cut your own.

Thanks Scott - great advice. Just to clarify, the original plan was to pump glycol out from our existing solar hot water system to a heat exchanger for pool water - so there would be no intermingling of pool and domestic water. The solar guy did mention the need to drain the solar panels and said it may be necessary to blow them out at the end of the season. But I would hate to start the system up in the spring and end up with pool water draining out all over place from the panels! I hadn't thought of the issue of additional wear and tear on the liner on the steps - I'll give the non-lined steps a second look. As for stone, we were looking at limestone bullnose coping, but perhaps limestone is too porous? We had originally planned on bluestone, but it seems to get awfully hot underfoot. We did get a quote from the pool company on a cantilevered concrete deck but the pool guy said that due to the cost of the molds, it would be just as expensive as the stone. However, if that is really a better way to go than the stone, perhaps I should reconsider? Maybe a narrow cantilevered concrete coping with a stone deck set outside? PS We are putting in a salt system - not sure if that impacts the deck choice... Thanks again. I am feeling completely overwhelmed and appreciate the advice.