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Archive for August 20th, 2009

Radiant Heat Is The Best Kind Of Heat

August 20th, 2009 Sully Johnsen No comments

During the cold winter months, it is nice to wake up to warm bathroom floors. Many bathroom floors are made out of cold tile or something similar and by installing radiant heat, you can tranform that cold tile into a nice warm floor that isn’t such a shock in the mornings.

The two rooms where many people choose to install radiant heat are the bathrooms and kitchens. This is because those floor surfaces are usually not carpeted and having warm floors is especially nice in those rooms. It used to be that more homes had radiant heat throughout the house. You might remember your Grandmas house having metal radiators somewhere in every room that you couldnt touch because they were so hot.

That type of radiant heating has been abandoned in modern homes but it doesn’t mean you cant have radiant floor heat installed in your bathrooms and kitchens. By adding floor heat to those two rooms, you will give them a special touch of luxury that you will enjoy for years and it will also make your home easier to sell.

Radiant heat can be installed in your home in two forms. The first is electric radiant heat and that is the easiest and cheapest to install. Electric radiant heat makes heat by heating metal coils under the floor just like the coils in a toaster. This type of heat is the best choice for homes that are already built. The other kind of radiant heat, is hydronic and with that hot water is pushed through pipes under the house which heats the floors. Putting in pipes that will safely carry hot water throughout the house is much more expensive and usually only done in houses that are being built.

Radiant heat is a great kind of heat because it is silent but it is more expensive that the forced air heat that is in so many of our houses today. If you are looking into heated floor cost, you should realize that radiant heat is best if it is installed while a house is being built. That doesn’t mean you can’t have it installed later but it is cheaper and easier to have it put in up front. If you are having radiant heat installed in an existing home, electric heat is probably the way to go. Having electric radiant heat pads put in under the floors is not that difficult and can be cost effective.

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Rose And Rose Virus

August 20th, 2009 Thomas Fryd No comments

In the beginning there were no roses, just the house set among oaks on a sloping hill. They were not interested in landscaping but something had to be done. So the couple called in an energetic nurseryman who planted the grounds with honeysuckle, Bridalwreath, lilacs, spirea and evergreens. In a few years his plants far outgrew their allotted space and the grounds were no more pleasant than before.

About this time the oak trees succumbed to a disease, one by one, and had to be removed. As if to save the situation, fate, disguised as an Etoile de Hollande rose flourishing in the shrubbery border, stepped in and inoculated the couple with a rose-growing virus.

Never since has Etoile de Hollande bloomed so luxuriantly, but no matter. The rose was responsible for the slowly rising fever that caused this husband wife teem to get eight more roses.

Despite neglect, the plants thrived. Maybe fate made them beautiful to inspire but more likely, it was good soil balance, lack of cultivation and a “green growing mulch” of portulaca or “moss roses” Which had crept into the bed.

Not much later fate took full charge. A broken arm in the fall and during the slow months it was mending, all the books in the house had been read and the only thing left was seed and flower catalogues.

The picture of roses brought the old fever back and now there was nothing to interfere with its course. Not even the persistent considering of golf as the only worthwhile diversion but the arm would not allow any play.

Due to the early training under a wonderful mother who loved growing things, the man of the house felt quite at home in this new world and as his vision broadened, he realized how easily a rose bed could replace a golf green.

Right off he knew growing roses on flat ground was as challenging as desert landscaping. It was a tame adventure compared to the thrill of hillside landscaping to develop really good ones on a hillside, such as his.

The property, on a slope facing south, was 168 feet long, 85 feet wide and rises approximately 50 feet above the street. The land climbs in a series of terraces from street to level ground and the house. The ascent continued, in smaller terraces behind the house, to level ground and the garage. It rises again to the rear lot line.

Such terrain is unconventional and presents obstacles. Some imagination, a strong determination-. to have lots of A bright roses and a free expression of our creative powers were needed to develop it.

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