glib: You might be right if the outside temperature were just below freezing or if the crop were more freeze hardy. But I'd bet a lot of money that my open blossoms would be frozen well before the water in the barrels froze. A couple nights ago when it was 10F outside and 55F inside I cut off the heater and fans to simulate a power outage. In 37 minutes the air temperature was down to 41F. In another 37 minutes or one hour at most the buds would be freezing. The heat is in the water but it just isn't going to transfer fast enough to protect something as tender as fruit buds. And the water in the barrels was at about 60F when I cut the power. Maybe under other conditions or with freeze hardy crops like greens, theory might hold up. I won't trust it at 10F outside for fruit bud protection. I do greatly appreciate your input and calculations. Maybe you are right. But is all that heat of freezing going to be released all that fast?

Read through the string of emails and found them very interesting...some facts and some experiences; I own a factory finish company (www.aciprefinish.com) I also field painted for 20 years prior to factory finishing. James Hardie sure did put fiber cement on the 'map' and they really helped my business by promoting factory finished siding (They call Color plus); and the fact is there is no way when I painted in the field I could equal or even come close to the quality, uniformity and 'total' board paint coverage a factory can provide. I certainly would not get caught up on the drying process; ACI has done both and a 'baked' on finish is simply for the manufacture to dry quicker, pack quicker and sell you quicker...the saying '... I don't get paid to watch paint dry' is very true. Air dry is the best, just takes longer; air dry allows the paint to penetrate the surface much better providing a deeper first coat base. Color plus is also sprayed on...ok but not the best; flood coat brushes the coating into the pores and specific to our process we have 6 brushes moving and pushing paint into the siding pores; in addition we 'wrap' around the back side edge of the board this further insures back side pressure from your home does not 'push' or 'pop' the coating, just more quality at no extra charge that most will never see or know about. Color should never be an issue though unfortunately a National company can not have every color in stock... locals like ACI can...over 1001 colors. If you are looking for fiber cement there are 4 brands to choose from; again Hardie is very well marketed though we found quality improvements in other brands, lower costs and better warranties. Really splitting hairs if 'we' beat on any one brand...they all have issues and benefits; I recommend looking closely at the texture grain, choose one and then do your research on warranty, price etc. Lastly, someone mentioned installers liking or not liking the installation process of factory finished - red flag if they don't like; our coatings are hard, our touch up comes from the exact batch we painted all your siding with...move on to the next contractor; at the end of day your getting the best coating process when factory finished. This should cost you less and your the one that will be living in your home and YOU should enjoy a long term coating with out having any maintenance concerns for 25 years (with ACI)less with the nationals. Good luck...believe in the process! Tim C President. Here is a link that might be useful: Architectural Coatings Inc.

Close, but the distinctions are a bit different than that. In both lines, certain pieces have disk bottoms; these are the pieces such as saute pans and saucepans that don't really benefit from straight-gauge construction. (Indeed, conducting heat up the side is quite possibly a bad thing, not a good thing, in pans with vertical sides.) In these pieces, Atlantis uses copper-disk construction, and Apollo uses aluminum disks. In addition, Atlantis uses full-diameter disks, which prevents hot spots in the corners. In other pieces, like rounded sautueses and frying pans, both lines use clad aluminum construction that is very similar to All Clad's, expect that they use thicker aluminum. The lines also differ in the handles. Apollo has loop handles that are formed from SS bar stock, and long handles that are made from rolled SS sheet stock. Atlantis has cast SS handles, that are very attractive in design. Both lines feature the Silvinox surface treatment of the SS, which makes it harder and more chemically-resistant than normal 18/10 stainless.

And this is what spider looked like after I killed it... more like screamed for my mom to come downstairs and she after about 5 minutes of attempting to squish it finally succeeded and it moved around alot and fast kept crawling up and down on fireplace mantle.... while she tried stabbing it with a pool stick from the old pool table near by... and told me she cant do it was afraid to get a shoe or something to get close to it I yelled I am moving out today if we don't kill this now ! Lol finally we got an idea and sprayed it with some kitchen cleaner and it slowed down long enough for her to kill it . Wish I had better pics but was so freaked put when I saw it I only snapped the one very quickly just in case I lost it before it had a chance to be killed and only have the phone photo of it dead to try to help identify it.. I been reading thru a lot of thread like these I know this one is old and I've been rambling quite a bit but hope someone takes time to read and respond....