Hi My 86 gal Well-X-Trol WX-302 has sprung a few leaks in the cross T portion between the skirt and the elbow in the center of the tank. I got a price for the WX-302 that I am comfortable with. I did the first install 12 years ago and I'll be doing this install as well. After a little digging, I was excited to find the WX-302P which has a stainless pipe extending out to the skirt edge. Theoretically, the stainless should outlast the brass cross T in my acidic, turbid water. The only problem is the WX-302P will run me almost twice as much as the straight 302--- $944 vs $519! Ughh! As an alternative, I was wondering whether a brass cross T with a built-in union might be an equally serviceable set-up. Any experience with them? How about the sched 80 and sched 120 PVC Ts and manifolds sold on-line? When comparing tanks, I see the "max acceptance factor" listings. OK---so that is the max drawdown of the tank expresssed as a percentage,etc. The WX-302 has a MAF of .54 while the other tank I'm looking at has a MAF of .41. Why does this matter to me? Does it give an indication of how much flexing the diaphram is doing? Thanks for any and all input

My email this morning contained a new message from the Guardian Glass authorized fabricator on Maui. This is for 3/8" glass 28" X 76" w/brushed nickel hinges and handle, bottom sweep. Clear (green tinge) without coating.....$1633 Clear (green tinge) with ShowerGuard.....$1811 Low-Iron (Starphire by PPG) without coating.....$1883 Low-Iron (Starphire by PPG) with Enduroshield.....$1988 Low-Iron with ShowerGuard.....$2130 (15% more than Clear w/coating) The new bid was prompted by a rep from Guardian Glass Co. calling the Maui fabricator to explain that today's Low-Iron w/coating does NOT have any tint. The fabricator's bad experience was with glass ordered five years ago. The glass company rep tells me the 10-year replacement warranty on the coating is only for the purchaser. It does not transfer to a new owner. You must *register* the purchase with Guardian Glass Co. for this to take effect. (You supposedly get $20 rebate when you register...big whoop.)

I am seeing this thread for the first time, and while I did not read the whole thing I am wondering if the original question was really addressed. The original poster is talking about situations where the root zone is far away from the perched water table. Instead of addressing that specific issue, somehow this thread got directed to the question of whether perched water table matters at all (clearly it does). Let's consider a specific example. Say I have an oil vase that is four feet high. I fill that will 511. Then I plant shallow rooted plants in that oil vase, so those roots are about 3.5 feet away from the bottom of the pot. In this post, a user makes the point that you want the root zone to have less than 5 kPa of pressure/tension in order to be able to take water out of the soil and nourish the roots. I do not understand this issue well, but using the data in that post (i.e., 1 kPa = 3.94 inches for a particular soil mix), that seems to imply that this soil mix would get to 5 kPa at about 20 inches of height from the top of the perched water table. You would get to 5 kPa at: 3.94 in/kPa * 5 kPa = 19.7 in ~= 20 in. That might imply that you want to keep the bottom of your root zone within 20 inches of the top of the PWT, otherwise the roots might have problems getting the best extraction of water out of the soil, in the days after watering. So back to the original question that was posted, it seems to me that there might be value in looking at the root behavior of what you are planting, and the size of the pot, and you might want to keep the bottom of your roots within an appropriate distance from the top of the PWT, in order to give the roots an easier time in extracting water out of the soil. That's way more complexity than most of us are willing to deal with, and I am sure there is a lot of science and practical understanding that I do not have on this issue. But maybe it is not a good idea to put a shallow rooted plant into a very deep container.

1965. Apparently 30" was allowable for upstairs hallways then, as were 12" on center toilets. Part of the issue is the narrowness of the building lots. The neighboring historic houses are trinities with near vertical box winder stairs, 5' wide lean-to kitchens and things like that. We looks at a house from the 1840s that was largish but had a pinch point like this on every floor where there was a passage like this along side a large chimney to rooms in the rear. The house had very little furniture in it, you couldn't get things in. I have no idea how this was allowed, except that if you measure out onto the nosing of the stairs it's about 30", which is sort of a cheat. The wall enclosing part of the upper set of stairs narrows it along a whole area rather than just a stair post. (sorta). It could be solved by redoing the bathroom and getting things back to at least 30" I am lucky to live in the 20" style of house which feels enormously wide compared to this.