I think the greenhouse topic is a great one. I installed a Lord and Burnham greenhouse about six years ago. It's a lean to with access only from the house. It's 7 x 12 feet and sits on a masonry foundation to match the rest of the house. Challenge was to find the old brownstone and find someone who knew how to build it. I was lucky to stumble upon a resident in my town that was doing a renovation and taking down an old part of the house which was the same age as mine. For $50 I had the contractor dump the demolished foundation in my driveway. Contractor installed a concrete footing and 12 " cinder block to grade and than a 6 " block for a knee wall. He cut the back off the brownstones and faced the concrete block to match the existing foundation. I made the floor of the greenhouse just 5 inches lower than the house floor. Didn't want a leak running into the house. There's a floor drain connected to an outdoor drain that ends in a sloping bank of ivy in front of the house. I used a concrete slab wit ha radiant heating system. I had the radiant floor installed knowing that at some point I would get to the heating system. Until then I had an electric heater. Ridge vent is connected to a thermostat as is the radiant system. The ridge vent closed at 50 F and heat comes on at 42 F. I didn't want one system turning on or off the other. I had a home water heater failure so I installed a Weil McClain mini furnace ( 100,000 BTU) that makes hot water. One loop goes to the radiant greenhouse floor and the other into a highly efficient tank for domestic hot water. I have not seen a dramatic increase in gas utility bills. I attribute this to the highly efficient domestic hot water system. Teh old stand alone tanks are not efficient at water storage. I had awning window installed on the long south facing side. Which I can open in spring and summer. One problem is that I have to get down on hands and knees to open and close the awning windows and further complicated by the fact that they are under the greenhouse benches. I have nothing in the greenhouse in summer so shading isn't an issue. The radiant floor is installed on a QP floor with a 2 inch aluminized foam board under the concrete and an 8 inch piece inserted to separates the exterior wall from the slab. Much heat is lost as the floor radiates heat to the exterior wall foundation. I tried to minimize that with the vertical foam board. I can send pictures if anyone is interested. ArnoldNew Jersey _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… Unsubscribe: <mailto:pbs-unsubscribe@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net>