Hi Linda, It's a shame there are so many left-wing loons living in CA. They ruin it for level headed folk like you. I don't know how much good it would do, but you can always write your congressman about the lunacy - but then again you got people like Nancy Pelosi!!! now Speaker of the House and she's from CA. How she ever got to where she is is beyond me! I like the idea of a Garden Junk Commission. We would be the most anti-PC people ever hired! LOL Insisting that there be no limit as to artsitic expression, ect; freedom would RULE! And I could use an extra 115K a year! How do I sign up? LOL In Melbourne the dams are something like 30% lower than they were in 2000 and we have tight water restrictions placed on us. The greenwashed loons have lobbied hard against new dams being built and the state has agreed! Yet the population has risen by almost the same percentage and we're expecting a further population growth. How the state govt expect to 'water' all these people has yet to be seen. They're so busy 'thinking ahead' combating 'man-made' climate change they're missing the point. There won't be any water left down here and the poor future kiddies will be dead from lack of water long before CO2 will kill them. So I understand about the greenwashed getting their way when it comes to progress. The greenwashed just don't want anyone living comfortably - except for themselves. Luna, what a great idea. Rid CA of the illegals and then see how much that state could save on EVERYTHING! Cait

The problems I've had growing citrus indoors have been that the inside air is too dry - not that citrus need super high humidity, but they like levels that would cause mold to grow on walls in a normal house. And most often there isn't enough light, not bright enough and not long enough in the winter. Also, they tend to get buggy at some point during their winter vacation indoors. It's as if the plants are struggling to survive inside a house built for humans but the bugs that like to eat them love it. Outside of building a greenhouse or sunroom (which I eventually did) the best thing I did was to cluster the plants together in a spare bedroom, put plastic sheeting down on the floor to protect the carpeting and allow me to mist the plants twice each day without damaging anything. I also hung clear plastic sheeting around the plant cluster to keep the humidity level higher around them but not against the walls and carpet. I put old floor lamps in and around them with strong lights on timers so that they got a lot of light for at least 6 hours each day. During two months of the winter (usually December and January) I would cool the room down (aiming for 40 degrees day and night), and turn off the supplemental lighting to let the plants go dormant. Most often they would lose most of their leaves. My goal was to save time and energy on their care and to promote blooming once I started watering and spritzing them again in February. I did lose some small trees but most of the time everyone responded well to the two month rest. The problem with heating with hot water bottles out on your porch is that you will need to refill those bottles often during really cold nights. The colder the air the quicker that heat is going to dissipate. You can provide a lot of heat with a small electric space heater (with a thermostat) if you tent the plant collection inside your sunroom porch.

We love our 'tub sized' doorless shower as well, although we pushed the wall out several inches beyond where the original alcove tub had been and ended up with a 59' x 52' shower. The extra space isn't necessary to shower but it helps keep the water contained, although we used Schluter Kerdi and Ditra throughout the bathroom to resist any water damage. Our shower is plumbed completely different than yours - the shower head is on the same end as the entry. If you don't want to install a showerhead in the ceiling and you're worried about water spraying toward the entry, one alternative is Grohe's Freehander. It sprays straight down or sideways and is very versatile. We actually replaced a brand new Grohe shower head (which was also great) with one of these and love it. It gives you a lot of options without installing separate fixtures and extra plumbing. For some reason this site isn't allowing me to post a link today but you can go to http://www.freehander.net/ to take a look. In any case, we love our doorless shower and highly recommend installing one. Good luck!

If you have separate wires going to Rc and Rh then you must have separate heating and cooling transformers. Can you trace the wires back to the source? If your furnace is 2-stage and you did not have a W2 wire, then the staging is being controlled by the furnace control board. You will have to move DIP switches to have the thermostat control it with a W2 wire connection. I don't care for the smart recovery. My suggestion is to turn it off and see how the thermostat works coming out of a set back period.