So I got the Miele Diamante Plus G2143SC installed yesterday. I ran it through two Rinse & Hold cycles first and then did a Pot Scrubber with detergent added so that the inside was clean of any manufacturing residue. I loaded it up with lunch and dinner dishes and pans that evening and ran it on the Normal program (the Turbo mode was off). I stayed near the kitchen the entire time and it sounded like it filled with water, pre-washed, drained, filled, pre-washed again (why?), drained, filled, washed (heard detergent door open), drained, filled, rinsed, drained, dried. Also, during the end rinse (which took about 30 minutes total), the last 15 minutes it sounded louder, like it was using higher water pressure. The entire time using the Normal cycle from start to end when it drained the final rinse water was 2 hours! The original GE Profile I had 3 years ago took about an hour using Normal, and the Electrolux from 2 years ago was about 1.5 hours. Tonight I going to use Normal again, but also with the Turbo mode turned on and see if there is any difference. Whenever it starts to fill with water, there is a slight is slight gurgling sound, but it only last for about 5 seconds and then fills pretty quite. During the pre-wash, wash, and rinse, it was very quite while running (more so than the GE and Electrolux I owned). I did hear (at the local Miele showroom) a Optima in use a few weeks ago (it has Q3 noise level) and I think it was a tad bit quieter than this Diamante (Q2 noise level) but not by much. When we checked it this morning, everything was perfectly clean (dishes, posts, pans, plastic cups (we don't use real glass glasses too often), and silverware. The plastic cups were dry except on a few that concave on the top where there was some water puddle. There was also a plastic storage container that was used to store left-overs. It was clean, but also has some water on the top part. Everything else was dry and spotless. So with only 1 use down, we're relatively happy with our purchase, and baring any problems down the road, I'd consider buying Miele again. A few other nice things about the way it's made, unlike most other dishwashers (including the GE and Electrolux we had), is that the exterior has it's own sealed enclosure on the sides and top, where most other brands you can see the fiber-insulation on the sides and top. This unit was side mounted (due to granite counters). The way it works is there's two screws on each side top and bottom, right before the water-seal. But instead of it drilling into the sides of the cabinet, they instead push a piece of metal onto the side of the cabinet that hold the dishwasher in place. This is nice, as it eliminates any drilling into the wood, but still holds it very firmly.

Haven't been back to this site for awhile but got an e-mail from another Andersen window buyer - still looks like Andersen is selling windows that let the outside in. My Andersen 200 series double hungs are great at letting the sunshine in as well as dirt and snow. Oh well - we just huddle around the fireplace all winter and stick pins in our Andersen rep voodoo doll. Come visit anytime, but bring your own firewood and warm blankets! New advertising slogan for Andersen - "We Let The Outside In!" Don't believe me - I have photos! Don't buy Andersen Windows or you will be very sorry! They design these windows to fail and no amount of 'adjusting' will fix them. Buyer beware! Feel free to contact me for the real story about Andersen Windows. Arlo Kallemeyn arlok33@yahoo.com cell phone 708-439-7316

I recently did this. My mom's house (stucco) has plastic thingies about 2" diameter, round, sits flat against the wall and has a small funnel-shaped hole in the center that extends into the wall. I'll call it a bushing. Drill a hole, put some silicone on the back side of the bushing that goes against the wall, stick it in place. Pass the cable through. When the cable is where you want it, squirt a final bit of silicone around the cable to seal it in its sleeve. You can find these bushings at the big box store with all the other cable tools and fittings. Edit: "Coaxial feed through wall bushing" https://www.amazon.com/RCA-VH144-Coaxial-Feed-Thru-Bushings/dp/B00009W3BU

If there was negative pressure, what can be done about it that doesn’t involve letting in cold air in winter or hot air in summer and wasting a lot of energy? Find what's moving air inside your home to the outside. Either turn it off, or force it to source its intake from outdoors. I gave some examples of such air extractors above, but again: > Replace indirectly vented gas furnace and/or water heater with ones that are directly vented. Note that a power vented appliance, such as a typical 80% gas furnace, isn't necessarily directly vented (and probably isn't). Alternatively, move these appliances to a fully ventilated space, such as the attic. Since you said your water heater is already in the garage, make sure your garage has enough ventilation and/or leakage to provide the WH with sufficient make-up air, or it will draw some of that air from your house anyway. > Replace conventional exhaust fans with air exchangers (heat recovery ventilators). These exhaust indoor air and immediately bring in a balanced amount of outdoor air, transferring the heat from one to the other as necessary to conserve energy. IIRC, the best of them can recover about 85%. > Move your clothes dryer to the garage. The above admonition about make-up air applies doubly here, because the dryer shoves a LOT of indoor air outdoors. > Don't use fireplaces and woodstoves, and make sure their dampers are sealed shut. Fifty years ago negative pressure wasn't usually a problem, because houses were leaky all over. Any time you ran something that moved air from indoors to outdoors, outdoors quickly sent some of its air right back in, though all those little cracks and crannies under doors and around windows.* Modern homes are sealed better. That's good for energy conservation and keeping your fuel bills low, but that's also why you have problems with negative pressure now. This reduction in air leakage also makes your indoor air quality significantly worse than it used to be, because so little fresh air gets in. Particulates stick around. Volatile organics from household chemicals and products of combustion from your gas range (if you have one) hang around in the air longer. If you have a well-sealed house, you really should have heat recovery ventilation for better health anyway. *This is why older houses are crackly-dry in the winter. You might think that heating dries the air out, and that's sort of true, but it's a little more complicated than that. Cold outdoor air may be at 50% relative humidity, but the "relative" part in "relative humidity" means "relative to how much water air at that temperature can hold." Cold air just can't hold much water. So if you have an old home like mine, as your furnace and appliances send household air outdoors, that cold air pours in through the many air leaks to replace it. The furnace heats that cold outdoor air up, but it still has the same absolute amount of water in it. So relative to its new higher temperature, its humidity is more like 20%. Cue the annoying kid shuffling his shoes on the carpet and zapping your poor dog's nose. Or yours. :\ Some well-sealed newer houses actually have the opposite problem, too much humidity, in the winter. Hope this helps.