Catherine! I had so much fun learing about lotus through posts and experiments last year so this year I decided to try something. I placed 4 tubs at the bottom of a channel in middle of the pond and filled each one with dirt on one side only. I then guided a runner from the original into the next pot and so on. So now it has spread all the way down the middle of the pond and then escaped down into the middle of the deep part. It fought it's way through the hyacinth bog and then went after the water lilly. I work in a sushi place now and they have lotus on the menu!!!!! I was hoping to get enough leaves to be able to serve some dishes on them, but I couldn't get them to preserve well enough. I bet there are tricks to that if someone can help me! That's about it for now. I will post one picture of the bustubs and then hopefully I can find a good one of the whole pond! There are a lot of other things I always think about but forget when I am sitting down on the computer. Hope everyone is doing well and Cath did your lotus bloom at all? [IMG]http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj306/oldsalt_2008/johns3032.jpg[/IMG] - John

Most rainwater is better for plants than public water. Kt

Cement Pond, You can't go wrong with either choice. Ozone or SWG will make your pool very low maintenance. This has been a long running debate in this forum about which is better. IMO, I say the poll forum is split heavily down the middle for either system. I have a ozone system and I love it. Of course you can't measure residual ozone, but there is no need to. Its either working or its not by the light being on. I work in a chemical plant with a commercial water purification system and they have a ozone system connected and our water stays pristine and clear. Just like my current pool. Of course you will a need a backup chlorinator because ozone breaks down chlorine, so your levels will always be around 1ppm or less. Plus its cool to see the bubbles come out of the pool jets. Your pool will have this champagne bubble effect at nite when the lights are on. But with an SWG, its no different either. You will need to either increase or decrease the SWG on days of heavy rain and possibly shock your pool also. Also you will need to keep bags of salt on hand and walk around the pool pouring salt into your pool. So if your thinking its totally trouble -free, sorry but that's just not the case. You will have to carry bags out to the pool to "salt" the pool down. So this is where it just comes down to convenience. I went with ozone because of PB's saying they will not install SWG's if you have a waterfall structure. Now when a PB misses an opportunity to sell you something, I have to take notice at that. Here in the Pearland area, a lot of them are getting away from SWG's because they are having to come out and make repairs from the effect of the SWG's on water structures. But that may be just certain builders. So I decided not to risk it. I know with my ozonator I use very little chlorine and I have not had any algae or water problems yet. But I have only had my pool for three months and its cold right now. But the days we did swim in it, not one problem occurred. And I was very leary about getting a pool due to a lot of maintenance. This has been a very trouble-free pool. So good luck. As for the location of the spa. It does come down to looks. Make sure they mark it out properly. When my PB marked my pool out on the ground, we had to go back to the drawing board, because I did not like the way it looked. Don't have your PB, just throw some stakes out. Have them use the orange or white paint and mark it out. If you have a two story, go up top and look at it from above. It will give you a clear perspective of what your getting. Walk it out numerous times and ask yourself, do you want to walk to the deep end to get into your spa? For safety reasons, I would want it in the shallow end. But that's just me. Good Luck.

They are designed with a flat sill but the sash is set to very outside of the frame so technically the water does not reach the sill like on a double hung. The sash generally has a a bulb or fin type weatherstrip or break around the outside perimeter of the sash so most all of the water is shed that way. Where as a double hung the water, well I think you know how that works. I have been following that thread and while I agree with some I think you will find the pro's on this forum will concur with me and possibly fill in more info as they have more of an installation background.