Thanks, everyone! :-) This conversion just took me so much by surprise that I had to share it! It's not often that I find other gardeners agreeable to the science I speak about. I think we've all been there... perhaps when we first began looking for the ingredients that we needed... and we found so many confusing looks and stumped store clerks staring at us like we'd grown a third eye in the middle of our foreheads! "Pine bark? Why on earth would we need pine bark? And what the heck is turface?" I try not to preach, per se, but I definitely speak my mind when conversing with other growers. The science is very solid, so there's really no need to keep quiet about the realities of container growing. Every aspect we talk about can be validated. But the indignant responses are very real... some folks get supremely put out, literally angry, when I challenge old fashioned methods and misinformation! It's kind of strange how close some people cling to fallacy. What amazes me, I think, is that so few people actually question the gardening industry... but then, a lot of folks are not that serious about growing, and only want to have a few pretty posies on their porches every summer... or they just want to grow a few tomatoes or an herb or two. It does take a more serious grower, I suppose, to look deeper into what makes plants "tick". Calistoga Al, I can only imagine the giant can of worms you'd open if you blurted out the truth regarding the industry and what they offer! I'm not saying that all bagged mixes are awful or completely useless, some having their place in certain circumstances... but I can just imagine the reaction from a large garden club, if you stood up and tried to make a case for a more durable, free draining medium... or tried to explain the physics of water moving through soil in a container environment... or tried to dispel the many myths that abound! So many people have been growing a certain way for so long, and have held beliefs for so long... it would be certain chaos to expose bagged soils for what they are! :-) Mike, science and truth will only prevail if people are open and accepting of new ideas. We know the science to be logical, and we've seen the evidence up close and personal... but when we encounter the type of person that thinks there's nothing further they can learn, the type of person that closes themselves off to the new or different, getting them to listen can be quite the chore! Sometimes folks need to discover things on their own... so we keep pointing them in the direction of truth and science... and we hope they'll think about it, mull it over, and maybe give it a try for themselves. You notice that it's always those people who haven't tried new ideas that have negative things to say about them... or people who haven't quite gotten the idea right, but won't ask for help... and so, they only have negative things to say. It's not even necessary to use the new ideas... but to acknowledge that there's more than one way to do something... that the facts add up! Anyway... it's time to "make the donuts"... again! Another day, another dollar, as they say! Happy Gardening to Everyone! :-)

The term "low voltage dimmer" describes a dimmer used to control a low voltage load but the dimmer itself is line voltage. Magnetic transformer low voltage loads require a special design to eliminate the small amounts of DC voltage created by regular dimmers. This costs extra to put in the dimmer so most don't include it standard. Without this the transformer can overheat. Both dimmer and transformer can be damaged. Electronic transformers don't like the way a standard dimmer or magnetic low voltage dimmer chops the power at the leading edge of the sine wave and require reverse phase dimming instead which cuts power at the trailing edge. Many LED fixtures use electronic drivers that require electronic low voltage dimmers. There are many ways to drive and dim LED lighting and they must be compatible or premature failures will occur. Here is a link that might be useful: Lutron's list of compatible LED fixtures.

And I'd like to add one other thing to my overall question. So the entire knob and tube run is pristine. Very good condition, very nice Everywhere I can see it running (through part of the ceiling joist cavity in an open frame construction). I'm just going to leave it alone because I can't get new Romex up there. But our kitchen is attached to the backside of our foursquare house and as a result there is actually an extension off of the home that extends the kitchen out a little bit further. It was original and since it was original there's no insulation in the ceiling. The lighting fixture as well as the entire three-way switch loop is all completely in open uninsulated cavities which are compliant even according to the latest NEC. However we would like to be able to put insulation into the other section where there is just a hip roof above the ceiling. When the ceiling is up there will be no access which I know is a parameter in the code. I know that you cannot run knob and tube around insulation or have insulation over it even though in some states apparently there is a waiver. So I'd like to try to figure out a workaround again since I cannot rewire the connections to the fixture with romex what choice do I have? Is it possible to at minimum install conduit above the insulation with a new single neutral wire that connects to the knob and tube in two places? In other words just replace one section of the existing run so that it is protected from insulation that we would want to put up there? Optimally I would relocate the neutral and shorten its length, but cannot do that due to the restrictions of splicing in romex. There will be no other loads on the neutral because I will be re-wiring all of the others with new Romax from the basement. It's only this one stupid lighting load on this three-way switch. Thanks for your guidance!

"Decora" is a Leviton registered trademark. Other companies refer to this style as decorator or designer when they want to imply that their device fits the same size opening. Lutron uses the name "Maestro" for one of their dimmer lines that fit in a designer style opening. Maestro dimmers that you find at HD or Lowes are not RF radio frequency. Some have IR capability but are called Maestro IR, or identical looking Spacer. For 3ways you use a remote in wall that talks to the master dimmer and tells it what to do using the typical 3way wiring. Lutron has both toggle style and designer style dimmers that can use remotes for mulitlocation dimming so you can have full control at both ends (and middle). Lutron Radio RA and HomeWorks wireless systems do have RF Maestro dimmers for whole home capable lighting control systems that are easy to retrofit. As Jon says, dimmers do save money, are an approved method of meeting California Title 24 in rooms as specified, do waste about 1% as heat at the dimmer and the lamps are not as efficient when dimmed. They also extened lamp life. Some dimmers do not need to be trimmed to fit next to each other but still require derating for the heat they produce. There are 1000 watt models available as well as completely remote dimming where you put a normal dimmer in the wall to control a larger dimmer hidden away.