Tom Raymond

I always forget that a BTU is an expression of a pound of water. Britts.

I wasn't putting down your design, merely offering suggestions for version 2.0. You did say there were things you'd improve upon for the next one. If it's less than 50 years old, it doesn't have near enough drip edges. Drip edges on your coping, and on any every other horizontal projection will minimize the amount of water the wall is exposed to. Buildings get wettest at their edges. An amazing amount of air moves through the wythe space, employing it to dry out a wet wall is smart. How do you plan on monitoring the performance?

Drip edges would be a good idea. And a bit of slope on the coping (toward the roof) couldn't hurt either. Keep the wall dry and it'll need less venting. The copper is gorgeous.

It's silly. I have instant hot water...my wife gets up first.

I'd stop payment on the check.

I say install it with whatever clearance you want. Just be prepared to accept the consequences. When the cooktop stops working, or the cabinet starts on fire, or whatever other bad thing that might happen does, it'll all be on you. We can say the stove is hot until we're blue in face, some people still have to touch it to find out for themselves.

Thanks. I just emailed them to Mrs. Klaus.

We have a Panasonic at the day job venting three baths and it doesn't work. In the bath farthest from the fan it sounds like a jet engine and moves little air. The other two baths are very quiet but there is even less air movement. Each bath has a variable timer, 5 minutes minimum to fifteen minute max (no bathing facilities), and when two of these are turned on simultaneously the fan runs continuously until someone manually shuts of one off the timers. I'd put a good quality fan in the bath I use every day, then something a little less perfect in the next bath, and then something around 80 cfm and 2 sones as the cheapo in the guest bath. It'll be a simpler installation, work better, and cost the same or less than the multi-source set up.

That sucks. An optimally positioned flat plate collector only has an aperture of 70-80 degrees. The Velux unit by design cannot be positioned optimally. A significant amount of collectible energy will be expended defogging the collector. The low angle and shaded location in the OP is quite far from optimal, regardless of the direction they face. I hope they have an efficient back up DWH.

Imports? These were made right hear in Bainbridge, NY.

AAMA and their idea that a huge tax credit is gonna fix the industry. It's more of the same crap thinking that got us into this mess in the first place. It's a band aid when what we need is a tourniquet. Sorry, you posted while I was typing.

Wrong. 'Cash for Caulkers' worked just about as well as 'Cash for Clunkers'. We borrowed against future business by subsidizing people who didn't need subsidies. It's no wonder we have such little business now. In 2006 when the incentive was $500, people were clamoring to qualify. No need to give away the farm. We need to stop thinking so short term. A small incentive that is open to all would do far more than the flash in a pan program we had last year. The current $500 is enough, but it needs to be an annual cap not a lifetime limit inclusive of previous credits, and it needs to be available on more than just primary residences. Tie the program to GDP or unemployment so that it goes away when the economy is healthy, it'll never get better if we're all on welfare.

That is precisely why I have radiant heat. Bleck!

I don't have experience with a large enough sample of evacuated tubes to know one way or the other. One project, 300 tubes, 900 gallons of storage. In the summer the home owner has to cover 2/3 of the tubes so the heat dump can keep up. In the winter he has to sweep the snow off them or he only has enough area to heat his DHW. We've replaced 4 tubes; 2 seal failures, 2 that he broke messing with them.

As near as I can tell from sparse images on the Velux web site, deck mounted collectors have insulated glazing. The most difficult part of reglazing a Velux skylight is getting the glass onto and off of the roof. 'Easy fix' assumes it's a seal failure. I can't tell from your pics if that is IG or not. If that is a single pane of glass, then you either have a glazing media failure or a collector breech. Media failures happen but they're rare, Velux has been making skylights a long time and have figured out how to keep water on the outside of the glass. Rare failures tend not to happen in pairs. That leaves a collector breech, and in order for both collectors to have failed together there would have had to be a significant over heating event, or a freeze.

You'd be a little too kind.

I chuckled when I read that letter. The obvious fix is for FHA to stop calling consultants "home inspectors", but what do I know?

That's a shame, adjuster stupidity is always excluded from home owner's policies.

Was that a seal failure on the IG unit or was the condensation inside at the collector? If it's the glass it's an easy fix, but if it's inside that means the collectors are leaking and fogging the glass just like a faulty heater core blows antifreeze all over your windshield. I'd wager it's the latter, and that the collectors stagnated for an extended period. If the PRV fails, and the controls don't cycle the pumps those little collector plates pop like balloons.

I don't like them at all. I have been in several dark stair wells that have CFLs that take far too long to provide useful illumination. Manufacturers are not required to clearly identify lamps that are not 'instant on'. When I fall down one of these stairs I hope I'm well enough to retrieve the bulb. I'm fairly certain my lawyer will want to name the manufacturer in the suit. My wife converted our house to CFLs because she wanted to realize the purported savings. The lamps we put in the kitchen wash out the finishes we chose, the stainless appliances look flat and the iridescent glass tile looks dirty in the light they cast. I also find that they do not last anywhere near as long as the manufacturers claim, several fixtures are on the third set of CFLs in just a few years. BTW, my electric bill has gone up since converting most of the fixtures to CFL (I still have incandescent bulbs in my 100 year old chandelier and a few other vintage fixtures). There is none of the incidental heat of incandescent bulbs, so my heating season is extended several weeks at either end and my boiler, and by necessity the circ. pump, runs longer and more frequently. So much for reducing consumption.

No. That's exactly what I was thinking.

I would be far more concerned about a WRB product handling the UV exposure it's going to get through the gaps in the cedar than being able to handle rain loads. If you really don't want to expose your WRB sheath the building with Zip, then whatever you cover it with is sacrificial.

Good Gawd, he has a magazine?! He can't possibly write any of it.

If it's winterized you can't test it. Re-winterizing hose bibs is a service I'd prefer not to offer.

So you had the place built and have a history of the builder bungling repairs since 2006, and now he says that water leaking into the basement from a second floor window is a 'maintenance' issue and not 'warranty'. It's not surprising he can't fix it, he didn't build it right in the first place. Your neighbors probably have similar problems. You need a lawyer.