"All that said, if I had an HE furnace within the habitable space in our house, I would definitely make sure it got its combustion air directly from outside the envelope. Apart from anything else, I would not want to draw unconditioned air into the house to provide combustion air for the furnace". Couple of points/questions still on this topic, as I draw closer to actual demo date. First, our local community permit office is now pushing enforcement of mua damper such as above (where as before, they knew, but weren't enforcing). Broan8T or other universal 8" mua damper: for better or worse, my plan is exterior unconditioned air, with critter cage and down line filter; the exterior duct will be 10' away from exterior vent pipes, chimney, and at 1' above grade. How to ensure the newly made 8" exterior hole through our brick is not a magnet for wetness/other (foam insulation) Is a big concern for me. The 8" duct will run a straight line of about 15' through an open crawl space (but not draw from it), then turn to run in the small furnace room to the return of the 80% efficient furnace. Not wild about this solution but it's feasible and reasonably priced (except for me picking up it's installation/brick cut/return duct cutting/ mua analysis, low voltage interface with hood etc). Low voltage unit in hood will communicate with basement duct/furnace to kick on when hood does. Regarding our house envelope: I've worked hard to update chimney rain caps/proper pointing and installed a new, properly size chimney liner, as well as new properly sized ducts for both our gas furnace/gas water heater. I also installed for the first time four window well covers which surround exterior crawl space vents. These slightly angled well covers are on raised clips which allow air flow in for mua. I'm watching this situation closely for sufficient mua, as prior to this the exterior crawl space vents were usually open for free access to unconditioned exterior mua. I'd say the laws pertaining to mandatory make up air (for largely =/ >400 cfm vent blowers) are ahead of reality for many GCs and homeowners and should be given more time and known code meeting types of mua. I understand the need for mua to avoid backdrafting and carbon monoxide poisoning. The industry is just not there yet with feasible solutions. It's the make up air engineers and specialists who benefit the most, as they get hired to check your leaky envelope and help with the universal damper installation plan, if they even agree to come to your house. This is an important and big investment for most homeowners. Do due diligence and bring your check book. Plan early, no your code and invest yourself. Good luck. edited for spelling etc. This post was edited by SparklingWater on Wed, Apr 3, 13 at 16:11

...and because folks are moving to North Carolina from California, NY and NJ....the prices here have been going up steadily! That's what we get for making it on those "Best Places to Live" lists! There have been interviews/articles in the paper where folks from those other states talked about how much more/bigger/better/newer you can get here versus where they came from...and, they are telling all their friends and relatives. My best friend in Berkeley was stunned when she saw a photo of our new house on 4.5 acres...but her 1920's bungalow on a tiny lot will sell for more than our entire place. I guess that's why the show "What You Get for the Money" is popular (but they need to update it with NEW prices). Cameron

I've done the coke with battery acid thing. In my case it wasn't rust, but the crusty battery acid that builds up at the connectors. That stuff isn't all that easy to get off either. I was about 19 and working at a restaurant and my car wouldn't start up after work. One of the cooks came out to take a look and saw the connection to the battery wasn't working because there was too much crusty acid built up on it. He unhooked the cables, ran inside and grabbed a glass of coke (or pepsi) from the soda machine came back out poured it on and it completely dissolved all the acid. Hooked them back up and it started up right away. I love Dr. Pepper but am trying really hard not to drink it very often. I already use sugar in my coffee in the morning so I don't really need more in the afternoon. :/

Well that's just bad luck. Overstock rarely puts things on sale -- sometimes they'll do a 5% off furniture or rugs or something. This seems to be a fall clearance event which I've never seen them do before. Anyhow, I agree with the suggestion that you should call in and ask for the price adjustment. I've found their customer service people to be very nice (once they let me call and and apply I coupon I found after I already placed the order) so it's definitely worth a shot. If you say you've been watching the price for months and finally ordered only to find it on sale 2 days later, I'm sure they'll do something for you! Good luck!