Typical well designed spray irrigation will at best be ~ 60% efficient WRT water utilization. Atomization in air, overspray, runoff, and surface water evaporation create the water loss and decrease efficiency. Most systems are so poorly maintained and not adjusted for seasons that this numbers is significantly lower. Typical well adjusted drip systems are more than 90% efficient with water use. Even when they are not adjusted for season, they conserve more water than even a fine tuned spray system. The challenge with drip is two-fold: 1. It is usually more labor intensive to deploy and maintain. 2. To meet the high efficiency number you must do a lot of figuring and arithmetic to design the system correctly. To the second point; A proper design requires: a) Calculating the daily amount of water each type of plant needs during the hottest, driest month. b) Determining the water holding capacity of the soil. c) Deriving from above data the best schedule for achieving the least frequent deep watering of the plant root zones while providing their daily need of water. If you spend a few rainy cold winter days figuring these things out, it can pay great dividend come growing season with healthy happy stress free plants.

The gutter is half round aluminum and is attached with brackets. There are no exposed rafters so I guess the boxed cornice would describe the area next to the gutters. The brackets holding the gutters are attached to the decking under the shingles and must go over or under an aluminum drip edge which was installed when the roof was replaced. I see no way to avoid contact with the drip edge since is is an angle shape with each leg about 1.5 inches wide. So it is not unusual here - in fact all houses in the neighborhood have the same type roof, drip edge and gutters. In other words, if you tried to avoid contact with the drip edge, the gutter would have to be installed about 2 inches below the edge of the roof and a lot of thewater coming off the roof would probably miss the gutter and it would look strange.

Thank you again to everyone who has chimed in! (And it is just so darn cool to hear from many of you illustrious GW-ers whose posts and kitchen we have read about and inspired by while we are in the process of designing and renovating our kitchen!) OK, so here's the skinny on our last ditch effort last night. We spent 2 hours, or maybe more, lowering down the legs and leveling the DW. We managed, we thought, to lower the unit by at least 3/16" to 1/4". We put shellac on the exposed bare wood and plywood parts above the unit. We also taped up a foil tape covering the exposed plywood subcountertop, the maple crosspiece, and most of the bottom part of the marble edge. We discovered: (1) When we drill the unit back up to the maple crosspiece, all that 3/16" - 1/4"minute space we gained was barely there at all! We wonder whether by tightening the unit to the wood under the countertop we have raised the unit back up. We un-attached the unit, which by this time is out of level again (huh?), releveled the unit, confirmed that we indeed have more spacing than before by sticking our index finger in the space and it felt looser. Attached the unit, and what do you know, tight again. (2) Putting the foil tape didn't stop the condensation. But, it probably protect the wood and plywood. So, we are going to return the GE monogram DW. Other than the condensation issue, this unit has pretty much everything I have listed on my DW wishlist (and we got it with $1000 rebate, ending up to be $399. A really great deal!) In any case, I hope that the replacement DW will solve this issue. We think we'll go with the Miele G5505SCSS unit although the controls on the front don't go as well with our kitchen vision as the Bosch 800 Plus, KA KUDE70or Jennair JDB8700 units would be. A part of me is also angling for the Jenn Air JDB8700 because I like the look of it best. It also has everything in my DW wishlist, except for the Miele reputation. Thanks everyone for sharing your information! You have been so helpful!

You know...it's funny how such seemingly small things such as drip rails or pull-out breadboards can add such nice subtle touches to kitchens and provide the opportunity to spice things up a bit (translation: to obsess even more)! davidro1 - I wish I could see a pic of what you mean. Trying to imagine this metal! At any rate my contractor's begun cutting wood. Thank you for your thoughts! Rococogurl - I agree with what you wrote about the top pic being nicer and also about contrast in color being better. My contractor brought over one that he made today, out of maple. He did no curving but had it slant slightly downward, subtly, and then it's gently softened on the ends (not too sharp). It extends out further than the sink a bit, like the first pic you and I both like. I think I like contrasty color because it makes the drip rail appear to be more of a deliberate design choice as opposed to a necessity (even though it is)! He's going to make the fat piece thinner then bring it back tomorrow. He aimed for the approximate thickness of the new pull-out cutting board which will be to the right of the sink and up a bit, under the countertop. So not as fat as the pics we've seen but not too thin for my simple kitchen. It also dawned on me today that my sink's probably one of the only ones anywhere (quite literally) that's pushed back so that it's almost flush with the lower cabs (due to needing to meet the wall-mounted faucet at a reasonable place). And that because it's so tightly scribed, the front corners actually appear to be less curved! Crazy huh? So in the end, it might not looks so odd after all!! You can kind of see what I mean by looking in the pic below (though better scribing job this second time around w/ the better contractor). Color question, if you don't mind (the length of this post, that is!): what do you think about making the drip rail match the front of the pull-out cutting board (as opposed to the floors which are original fir and very orange looking)? And what the heck do I do for a color?! My contractor thought stain wouldn't hold up as well as paint. The wood will be maple. I thought a clear satin maple finish might be nice - on both the drip rail as well as the front of the pull-out cutting board (which will have a cute little knob of some sort, I think) though that's only cause I can't think what else to do. Black seems too dramatic; a dark brown or cherry finish won't match anything in the kitchen since my butcher block tiny island has a maple top, much to my disappointment (Craigslist...I wish it were a dark-topped Boos island but oh well!). But will a clear varnish look bad? The kitchen main colors including cabs will be some version of BM's Fieldstone gray (a gray w/ hint of green color) along with some cream color (and perhaps some white). I like the cheerfulness of the drip rail in the link below (at the bottom). I have no updated pics but I'll include a quite older pic to give you an idea in the daylight. There have been several improvements since. Ignore the brown bowl which is never usually in there. Thank you! Here is a link that might be useful: