I've had a citrus tree in a 15 gallon pot for 7 years. It has fruit every year. Last year it shot up such strong growth, 3-4 ft, I had to prune it back. It has been covered with bloom for 6 wks. It's been in that pot all that time in about 10 gal actual soil and never repotted. So my point is you don't need a big pot. Go with something you can handle. For me that's 15 gal or smaller.

based on my I-Bs, the stems are fairly tender at the beginning, they do get woody pretty quickly...since I pinch my buds when the cluster was around 1 inch in diameter, I can't tell you if they flop after a big rainstorm or not...for the stems that are fairly old, say 8 weeks or more, they are thick, more some than some the Annabelles I have seen...and these stems are getting hard and woody already...so my bet is all those people getting that IBs in the one gallon pots are now have blooms and they realize the blooms are flopping like most Annabelles would, thus the disappointment...I do think this plant will not give the 12 inch size blooms or the very sturdy blooms the first season...so I am watching what's coming for these in 2010...I usually reserve judgement on these new plants till they have been in my garden for at least two winters...will do the same for IBs here...the general negatives I heard on these new hyrangeas are - ES (wilting, not blooming the next yr, what's wrong)..Blushing bride (boy, what with that leggy growth behavior, floppy everywhere)...Twist-n-shout (will it even rebloom, Penny-Mac the parent was a bust)...Cityline series (very vivid colors, too deep purple, dont overwinter well in Penn, Jersey or areas further north)..Forever-n-Ever (powdery mildew galore, most PM prone of all rebloomers I have had)...you get the drift, there is always something negative about a new release...

Zone4 - you might not be happy but disclosure wouldn't apply here. There is no code requirement that applies (that I know of) and so there is no breach. It would seem that installing LP for that purpose alone seems a little extreme. One option - which has cheaper run cost and install than the LP tankless option - run a recirc loop from that bathroom to the tank. Have it on a switch. You turn on the switch and the line fills with hot water. The pump is $200, electric should be $200 and extra plumbing is $100. You won't waste water and as long as you shut it off, you won't waste electricity to heat the water. My $100 charges of course are guesses and the plumbing in the slab might be more. The $200 electric is what it would cost me in NC. You can of course put the kitchen sink on the same loop and install a switch at that location too. Recirc loops are done all the time but where you need to be careful is the energy loses because they are usually left on nearly all the time. By having them on-demand with switches, you counter most of those losses. To help with some of this, I would definitely insulate the slab plumbing lines. Another option would be to do solar for the hot water and use a 80 gallon tank. If the incentives are there, solar can be reasonable. I paid less than $2000 all in which is about the cost of your 2 50 gallon heat pumps.

look into the new "Condensing" Gas Water heaters. They have efficiencies well into the 90% range and claim they put out as much water as a conventional 75 Gallon water heater. AO Smith is probably the best known one , but more new ones are coming. I heard they qualify for different Govt + Gas Co incentives/rebates. We will need a new water heater soon, to replace an old conventional 50 gallon gas water heater that uses a pilot. Since our gas bill is usually less than $13 in the summer, and I'm 68 years old, I will probably buy another conventional gas water heater--we don't use that much hot water and the price of the condensings are around $500 more ($1600) v/s probably around $1000 for a good quality conventional one. Were I younger and used more hot water or had a higher gas bill, I would certainly go with the Condensing one, and it's still not "Written in stone", that I won't! HTH's Gary