By their definition I'm a red neck in a number of ways. But I'm an uppity red neck. My claw foot bath tub planted with flowers) sits on slabs of Alexandrite that I scrounged from the local marble and granite shop! My satellite dish is the roof of my gazebo that has wrought iron furniture in it. My tan is a farmer's tan. I didn't make anything out of beer cans but have LOTS of things made from bottles. My fountain is made from galvanized tubs. I'm proud to be a redneck if that is how you define it!!! ~~Mimi

An oily, disreputable looking fellow walks into a bank with a large sack on his back. Seeing an open teller, the man walks up to the young lady and places the sack on the counter. "I want to open a f---ing savings account!" the man grunts. "I am sorry sir, we prefer politer customers," she replied, offended. "Okay, look I just wanna open a f---ing banking account." "I'm sorry, but you just can't speak that way." The supervisor, seeing the trouble went over to check on the situation. She got there and got the story from the teller. Trying another tactic, she decided to handle the situation herself. "How can I help you?" she asked, all smiles. "Listen, I would like to open a F---ING savings account!" "I am sorry, but we do not deal with people who use vulgar language." Finally, the bank manager came over to settle the matter. "What is the matter here?" he asked. "Look," replied the customer, "I just won 47 million dollars in the lottery and I wanted to open a f---ing savings account to deposit all the cash in." "Are these two bi-ches giving you trouble?" quickly replied the manager.

Last year I caught a bit of an interview with Freegans - people that live from dumpsters. Two doctors (MD, not PhD) go dumpster diving several times a week. It was incredible to watch them pull out enough food to make dinner. "Thats nice," I thought, "But not for me." Well, now that Im serious about expanding the garden, I needed more compost materials and asked my florist if she would save her scraps if I provided heavy duty bags. She obliged but as the weeks go by, she complains about being too busy to separate it (even though I told her she didnt have to.) Every week, she gives me fewere and ferw bags, so I started going through her dumpster. I cant believe the stuff she tosses. I make little bouquets for around the house. She tossed out four unused 75-foot white pine ropes. I made wreathes out of them and the spruce from Christmas trees on the curb. Ive started rummaging through the dumpster at Starbucks where Ive pulled many milk cartons that now have winter sown seeds in them. My husband is concerned about my safety so I usually go around 6am when there are other people around, though I noticed that dumpster diving is best at night, after the businesses close but before the garbage trucks arrive. When I was a kid, I was embarrassed by my Dad who was a garbage picker. Though, he sometimes came home with nice stuff that only needed a small bit of refurbishing - bicycles, a very nice lawn swing. Now hes my compost buddy. "Dad, if you see a Christmas tree on the curb, GRAB IT!" Hes brought home countless bags of leaves that will be great mulch this summer. I guess Ive reached an age that I just dont care what people think of me going through the trash. Its a fun adventure too though I have a feeling it will be too funky for me to tolerate come warm weather.

I don't much care about saving 15cents a month or whatever. I should be lucky enough to live long enough to receive that payback. I do care, however, that we have plenty of hot water when everyone visits so I am not scheduling everyone for showers the next morning at dinner the night before. Can someone please just give me an honest answer about whether tankless would likely work for us. Uh, Wldsyd, I'll repeat what I wrote 4 messages above yours. That is that the President of Rinnai America himself said you should not buy a tankless heater if your goal is to save money or to save gas. Particularly in a cold climate, the gas usage for a tankless can be really high. He said you should buy a tankless because you want endless hot water. Also, it has the advantage of a much smaller footprint than a traditional tank. That should answer your question. If you are all so angry that you can't even stomach and tolerate questions from homeowners who truly do not understand the technology and are simply trying to make good, long term choices, then why hang out on these forums? Can't you imagine that after 11 months of living in the middle of a major remodel I don't need anybody attacking me. Thanks for the sarcasm. In defense of Peteyboy's response to you, what I saw in your message was a challenge that said that despite all the previous 140+ posters, you still weren't provided enough information, despite posters' links, despite professional plumbers and installers opinions, despite lengthy explanations of why people felt pro or con, despite explanations of the necessary venting and gas line changes involved in tankless, despite opinions from the tankless owners who'd been living with them. You dismissed it all by saying people had "personal agendas", that the several professional responses were "those that are simply hell bend against change b/c they don't, perhaps, have the expertise to do the installs". With 140+ responses, none of which you found helpful, I cannot blame Peteyboy for his message. BTW, you can also do a search on this Forum for "tankless", and you will come up with many more threads if you seeking more information than what was provided in this one.