It's not uncommon to have the space above the dropped ceiling function as a return air plenum. Most of the newer office buildings I have worked in were set up that way. The air handler(s) just suck the return air out of the plenum at some distant point. If the HVAC was blowing sufficiently for your essentially uninsulated office, you would not be cold. It takes a lot of air to make up for that ice cold uninsulated wall. We "feel" heat from two sources, convection heat and radiated heat. Convection heat comes from the warm air blown into the room as it bathes its occupants. Radiated heat comes from the room's surfaces or a direct heat sources, like a stove. Normally, insulated walls are warm enough to radiate some heat, which is what helps you feel comfy. The radiated heat from the ice cold brick wall is pretty much absent. That's why you feel cold.

We have the pull-out Grohe Ladylux Plus. Our next faucet will be pull-down. We don't care for it for a number of reasons, all of which I've detailed before (handle is difficult to modulate and gets filthy at the bottom, pull-out has to be manuevered with two hands or I'm spraying outside the sink - we should have mounted it to the side of our 33" sink, not the center). It is well made and heavy, but no more so than our Barand bathroom faucets. I do like the high arched design - we have REALLY large pots to fill and clean. And also the stainless finish - will definitely stay with that on the next faucet. This is the third faucet we've had since 1990. The Moen was a piece of crap, the Price Pfister drove us both crazy with its design quirks so we had it yanked after only three years. The Grohe's okay, but if I ever change the counters again (one of my 'wish list' items) it's getting dumped on craigslist unless one of my family members wants it.

dadoes, your general rule (which I think is more like 80/20) is just for electric water heaters, not gas. With an electric one, the area below the lower element is typically unheated (cold). With a gas unit, the burner is at the bottom so that the whole tank heats up. Additionally, the recovery (the time it takes to reheat a tank of cold water) is lethargic with an electric unit. While a gas one can often reheat a cold tank in an hour or less, an electric one can take 2-3 hours. So that when the hot water in an electric's tank is used, that's it for a long while. jb3710, once you've filled a bathtub or two and then started the dishwasher, there's not much hot water left to use from a 65 gallon electric tank. If you want to do all that usage within a period that's too short for an electric heater to recover (presuming gas is not available), you'll need either another heater plumbed in parallel or a larger sized tank. You'll get a bit more capacity by turning up the temperature setting. If your dishwasher has an internal heater for water, it'll work fine with cold water, start it after your shower and bathe the kids earlier. This post was edited by snidely on Sat, May 25, 13 at 17:32

You may want to decide on a budget and the material make up of the windows that you are wanting to replace. They can be wood, vinyl, fiberglass to name a few. Here is a small list of manufactureres that come to mind: Gorell OKNA Simonton Soft-Lite There are others that are of good quality. I am sure others will chime in on this subject. You can probably do a search on these companies to see what others have to say about them. By searching these, other quality products will be found. This will get you started on your research. Also, maybe contact some local dealers as they carry various brands.