The sun hitting the bottom shouldn't really affect them. It's the same with how fish and tadpoles survive in heated water, lower down the water is cooler. Also, soil above tubers would insulate them further. I also have a natural swimming pool, only 30 metres across but enough for me. Waterlilies are growing in it from a depth of about 10 cms to 1.5 metres. They only get filtered sunlight but still flower quite well. Only thing is the leaves and flowers are small due to the lack of direct sunlight most of the day. The same species of waterlily in ponds out in full sun all day are larger. Waterlilies have evolved to live in wetlands with little or no tree canopy above them. As they're floating in water high air temperatures don't have much effect, what's more important is the intensity of the sun. And, as I mentioned before, tubers are well insulated.

While your grand 2 story windows are pretty, you do realize that there will be practical problems? I don't want to beat a dead horse about heating that room... ok well I will. Obviously the r-3 wall (what it will be with windows and the pack of studs in between, is going to be a huge heat loss. Combined with the heat rising, it will be a room that will take the majority of your heating needs. And it isn't just an energy use problem, but it becomes an issue with vastly different loads between this room and the rest of the house. Second, I know that Washington is not sunny NC, but it surely gets sunny at times. A SW facing wall of windows that you can't cover is going to be frustrating from the glare. I have a view wall facing SE and we need sunglasses inside at times but we can close the blinds. It isn't 2 stories either - just 10 ft ceilings with 14 ft wide window bank. Third, again while it isn't as sunny there, when it does get hot and is sunny, you will have a cooling problem. And mind you, it isn't just the energy use, it is the differential in the rooms. You may be turning the stat on 75 but have some rooms at 70 and freezing just to keep that room comfortable. It is very difficult to design a HVAC that can handle such different gains in different rooms. I have a study with a wall of west windows and have planted a tree to deal with the 4-6pm heat up. I rent mountain houses fairly often in the Asheville area and this type of wall is common. But it can be frustrating even just for a few day stay. The last one had tinted the windows and installed an electric awning outside. Blinds and drapes just don't fit well with these walls in the mountains. Honestly - they could be installed but no one wants to because it doesn't fit the "mountain" style. In that house, we had to sleep in double beds downstairs because the king upstairs was too hot from all the gain in the afternoon - and yes the house had a/c. Obviously not the best designed system and you will do better but the challenges are there. I have an oceanfront house (vacation rental) - I understand the need for view without compromise. But the 2 story huge windows you don't really see anything out of except sky and for a large portion of the time you are there, you might be staring at the sun. Yes - they look dramatic. But drama's appeal wears out and practicality does not.

flex in a crawl...sigh the things we do... you don't get into specifics about the audit and I've learned not to expect much from a lot of 'audits'. but... ducts leak.flex less than hard pipe. where they connect to the plenum @ start collar where they terminate at supply box and where supply box connects to floor. just by removing a supply grill inside the house you can see the poorly sealed cut. before you spray foam..mastic seal these areas I listed above. paint on mastic or mastic tape like hardcast brand #1402 duct leakage is high in existing house. sealing the ducts with acca ul approved products should be done prior to foam don't let foam company sell you duct sealing with foam foam is not a duct sealant. not approved & over time fails quickly. if ducts are strapped in between floor joists..how will foam company get foam to floors? better take a look under there and see if ducts are strapped or loose or lying on the ground. (ducts shouldnt lie on the ground) do any duct sealing first...its a pita to dig out foam to work with ducts...been there done that. I'd use closed cell. if you use open cell then a vapor barrier has to be installed on the face of the open cell once install is complete. unless you have a perfect vapor barrier on the ground...that is still perfect after foam install. while closed cell will trap moisture it is the way that it is installed that will make the difference. install is 2-3" of closed cell in between floor joists. the joists themselves are not encapsulated in foam (directly opposite from unvented attics..different product different needs = different install) where the foam meets the floor joist is where the future leaks will exit. if you go under a house that has had closed cell installed you will see that in a couple of years the foam seperates a bit from the joists. closed cell is rigid when dried and doesn't expand and contract like open cell. this seperation helps to aid exit of water from leaks. did the audit cover duct leakage and how to address? what shape are the ducts in currently? are they strapped up or not? your system is in the house in a closet? shop your foam companies wisely. ask for customers names that have had similar installs and speak with them. as for as offgassing..all foams offgas. but it is outside of the living space and shoudn't be a problem as long as there are no gaps for the foam to enter the house or the ductwork. you may want to spend the night somewhere else if you worry that it will make you ill. any plumbing work in the future will have to be re-foamed once work is complete. usually cans of great stuff can be used to seal these smallish areas. if not the foam company has a bigger can of foam that will cover most of these larger areas. best of luck

Catching up on this post from yesterday… it just gets progressively funnier. Since we’ve bypassed delicacy, I’m not actually concerned about the *need* for an exhaust fan… And I agree that I don’t expect a guest bath to see much use…just the general strangeness of sitting on the sofa chatting with friends, while some one is in the bathroom two feet away. How often that would be a problem? Probably never… like you said, they can go upstairs. Bellsmom-- I’m impressed with your photoshop skills. That looks really nice!! Thank you! There really isn’t another spot for a powder room. We had considered moving it to the other end of the kitchen, where it could be aligned with the fridge and you wouldn’t see it as a boxed-out area, but then it’s really IN the kitchen. And disrupts the whole layout of the area. We’ve gone back and forth on the backdoor. Bumping it out to square the room would be ideal. But it would require adding a foundation, and also removing the concrete and brick stairs that lead directly down to already existing concrete patio. So it’s not just the door… it’s the other twenty things it affects. I wanted to square the room, and put French doors on the right hand wall, but there is a tree there, and adding steps down to ground level would require removing it. I love seeing it out the window, and was unsure I wanted to take it down. The problem with this project is that we are trying to fix someone else’s poor design rather than doing it right. Which may be only marginally easier than starting from scratch. Thank you so much for sharing all your thoughts!! I will upload a photo when we have some kind of mock up of the wall… hopefully it will give us a better idea of how it might look in reality. Bellsmom’s photo kind of looks too good to be true. And I liked the idea of bookshelves, although the wall would probably be better as a sofa wall, since the room is long and narrow and the sofa depth would be better not sticking into the room.