Hey Oberon!! can you drop me an email?? what I would like to see is homes designed with the ductwork in the conditioned space, then duct leakage would be to the interior of the house and not the exterior. there are so many real world problems with duct leakage/return leakage and so many oversized units to make up for the leakage. HO gets 5 tons on 2500 sq ft home..if house leakage were reduced and duct and return leakage reduced to 5% then unit is oversized... one of the biggest misnomers is that a bigger unit is better. what really happens is that unit short cycles costs more to use per month, doesn't run long enough to remove humdidty..and because of all the stops and starts has a shortened life. high efficient hvac is only as good as the install. in my latest training class they did a calculation that blew me away... I've seen a lot of home with R-38 attic insulation, with attic staircase in the conditioned space. so when uninsulated attic staircase is included with little to no R-value the overall attic insulation is reduced to R-25...now throw a bunch of IC rated recessed cans (not air tight ICAT) one equals one sq ft of uninsulated attic..what do you have now??? insulation that can't perform because of air movement through the insulation.. efficiency always costs more upfront, but it is the length of time it takes to pay back that cost that makes one option preferable to another. green is 80% energy efficiency and 20% everything else (joe lstriburek of buildingscience.com) I would like to see an energy efficiency forum here.

Hope you feel better soon Stacy. For the first time in a month I'm aware that it is Friday... well very early Sat morning now. My lay-off has come to an end for now and I go back to work on Monday. I didn't know how bad I needed an extended break. I'm alive and living again! A rather strange day. New bartender and I struck up a friendship. Alas she is less then half my age so it will be just friends. She had guessed I was "not older then 33" which puts her off by 11 years. Still it was so good for my ego to have an interested gal being friendly. Just took a walk down my drive as Dolly had been barking at something. Nothing out there to be found but it is one beautiful night out there. Out here in the Thumb we don't get much light pollution so the stars are very clear. The Milky Way makes a neat white stripe across the sky. Some lightning flashing out over Saginaw Bay which is 30 miles north of me. Probably rain by morning but clear and cool right now. Not in the mood for alcohol or I'd take a bottle and go have a sit in the moonlight. My outdoor cat Tippy got into a bad fight and came home all bloody. Thought he might lose an eye this morning. Patched him up and put some boric acid eye drops on his wounded eye. Must have felt good because he didn't seem to mind my putting stuff in his eye. Happy to report the swelling is way down and he looks better tonight. Going to buy a storm door in the morning. Only one in stock a couple weeks ago and I need to get another. The garage didn't really need one but both doors are on the front of the house and it looks funny to only have one storm door. Dad said I should close off the porch but I don't know if I have that much energy. Grew potted tomatoes and peppers instead of flowers the last couple years and don't know if I want to lose the porch space now. So it goes. I need to take some cyclobenzaprine so I can get back to sleep. Doc gave it to me for my back problems but it makes a pretty decent sleeping pill. Way better then ambien but not as good as some opioids. I'll feel buzzed all day tomorrow from it so I only take it when sleeping is otherwise impossible. : ) lyra

I couldn't even finish the EW interview with Natalie, oh heavens, the whole world was against her and she was only trying to teach people how to do things, and Jeremy hurt her on purpose and her back hurt the whole time (at least while Jeremy was there) and she was just portrayed so wrongly. That's exactly why no one wanted to play with her, she sat on her tush the whole time and blames everyone else for everything. Yikes, I wanted to feel a tiny bit of sympathy for her but I don't think so, she's way too deflective.

I don't know where the custom came from Matthias, but Annie introduced it to us probably a year ago. She, thank heavens, reminds us monthly. I do the annual 'bury the money' on New Year's Eve, thanks to Raven. I believe the rabbit-rabbit is going to work for me this month. I've been trying to get a consistent answer on time, and amount from Service Canada on what I can expect in the way of a Survivor's Allowance. Every time I call, I speak to a different person (call center). I think I got hold of a lady who actually knows what she's doing. She told me that my application is completed, but that the account is 'suspended' whatever the heck that means. She looked deeper and saw that I'm getting paid retroactive to December, so I'll get a lump sum and then a monthly amount going forward. She's lifting the suspension in order for me to get my payment. Her numbers are comfortable for me, I've been told much smaller numbers. Fingers crossed the Rabbit is right!