For the reasons I explained, seeds aren't available from many sources, particularly commercial ones because they can't maintain a continuing supply. eBay is the most common place to look, but many of the sellers are foreign (i.e., making illegal sales) and in addition there is no way to be sure of quality of any of the sources. Most of these folks are not in the bamboo business, so it's impossible for me to name any of the vendors as long-term, reliable sellers...they just come and go. I have grown from seed 5-6 times and most of the time I got my seeds from other U.S. bamboo growers that I keep in touch with. I did buy Moso seeds once on eBay, from a source in Florida, and I got 100 seeds for $6 and they were fresh and viable. If you want to try growing from seed, take a look at the eBay listings, see which ones are domestic, and email any vendors you are interested in to see if you can find out how fresh the seed is. And don't pay too much...I've seen people on eBay trying to sell a couple of bamboo seeds for as much as $10. So, now that you are educated about seeds, you can appreciate why bamboo is more expensive than you would think it should be: sellers of bamboo plants don't usually grow it from seed...they have to make a field division off of a plant which they have been growing for a couple of years, pot the division, stabilize it, tend it, and preferably let it grow in the pot for 6-12 months before offering it for sale. For a hedge that is 20' long, you would probably want at least 5 decent-size plants, and that might set you back $150-$200 or more total from a reliable commercial source, depending on the species. I do not recommend buying bamboo on eBay: almost everyone I know who has done it has been sent only rhizome or plants that are half-dead or worse on arrival. Many of the people selling bamboo on eBay don't know how to properly divide it: they're just people who have a patch of bamboo out on the back forty and are trying to make some money by digging up chunks and selling them to the unwary. If you planted runners, you could start making your own divisions in 2-3 years to fill out your hedge or to extend it. It's just the initial getting started that takes a while. My email is available if you click on my screen name. If you contact me, I'll give you some info on how to maybe get some decent plants at a lower cost.

I hope it's not hard to keep clean. That said, after along time living with white walls we only had a couple of spots on them over the course of 4 years. We just don't seem to "splatter" much. We're not too concerned. Thanks, wi-sailorgirl. On the end of each run I used a wetsaw to make perfectly straight cut. I spaced it 1/16" from the trim. It looks like this on the refrigerator side, and looks identical on the other end. I also bumped into the trim around the window, so I did the same thing there = spaced by 1/16" and made a nice crisp cut using a wetsaw (rented it for 1/2 day).

Waste..... Foaming the walls is a waste. Go to any green building forum and it is almost universally felt that foaming walls is a waste of money. The foam salesmen are about the only ones that disagree. In my east facing house with 2x4 fiberglass batts, the walls and attic only account for 20% of total heat gain (energy audit). You are going to spend $10k to make that 20% come down to 15%. I have a similar size house in NC and I spent about $20k on Carrier Infinity 15/16 with heat pumps and 90% NG furnace and zoning and humidifier. So I think the $36k is absolutely crap. But $11k is a bit ridiculous also given the specs. In fact- I just can't believe it. Manual J is required in NC by code - so I don't know what to tell you. It is standard around here for quotes/bids. Oversizing sucks. 2 stage helps compensate. An is an air quality thing more than anything else. It is rarely cost effective. Texas is big - what is your area and ideally what is your HDD and CDD? Here is what I would do - presuming you live in a 90% cooling area. - Build with 2x4s and sheath the house in 1 inch rigid foam. If it really hot, you could go to 2 inches of foam. - Focus on minimizing East and West windows. If you can't - then really focus on low SHGC windows. All windows are low-e nowadays but SHGCs vary considerably - there are basic windows at .2 and .45 - a rather huge difference. Overhang the windows as much as you can tolerate. Big deep porches. Do those things and you should be able to get down to 2 2ton units which you should be able to get for $10k for seer 15 or 16. Most people don't find it worthwhile to get seer 18 equipment. Usually with new construction, you can spend that $5k (or whatever) on shell improvements (windows, overhangs) and get a better permanent ROI. There is no disagreement anywhere that 2inches of rigid foam on a 2x4 wall filled with blown cellulose outperforms a 2x6 wall with spray foam (and does so at a lower cost). Lastly - why an unvented attic? Because the ductwork is there? The best practice is to get the ductwork out of the attic in the first place. It is cheaper and far more cost effective. My personal house (4000+basement) would cost $10k to spray foam the attic at a estimated annual savings of.... $70. How about that ROI....

I used Building-Cost-Net which I found online to get a estimate for the house we are building. The program is fairly detailed and takes some thought and time to get through the questions. For example, it will ask you want type of exterior siding you plan to use and where your home will be located. Because the location, rural, city, etc. can make a difference to the overall cost to build. Another idea is to google price per square foot in your area. That also gave me a very good idea of what we would be paying to build our house. Having these estimates in hand did help us when we started meeting with builders. The builder we chose brought in an architect who worked with us to modify the plans to include our 'must have's and to improve the layout of a few areas; we needed to add two bedrooms to the main floor. We met with both the builder and the architect for a couple of hours the first time. During the first meeting the architect asked us a lot of questions about our likes, dislikes, family and lifestyle. During the second meeting he came with his changes. I'm not sure that anyone who doesn't have this information could help make changes to a floor plan. In my opinion hiring the architect was very important step and worth the extra time and expense. We originally felt the plan didn't need much tweaking, other than the addition of the bedrooms, but the architect came up with a layout that fit our lifestyle and family much better. We have a big family, by modifying the layout slightly, he was able to make the pantry, mudroom and laundry room bigger. And he did all this without taking away from the things we loved about the plan; open living area which flow well into the outdoor areas. He was also able to eliminate things that weren't important to us, such as a large built-in bathtub and a second, large closet in the master, which will save us money. The original designer may offer this as a service or may allow you to take the plans to a local architect. I personally liked using the local architect better. He went out to our land and was able to suggest how he thought the house should sit to take advantage of the best views and get the most sun in the winter. This was different than the original way we or the builder thought the house should sit.