MHBacklund

A 10" Craftsman came into my life about 30 years ago...used!...and I just finished squaring it up today for a bed building project. I'm doing a lot of dadoing right now, always cross cutting, and no small amount of ripping.
By the way, quite a few years ago, after a perhaps slightly dull blade did "hog" up onto the wood and scared the bejezus out of me, I started ripping from the opposite direction, so that the blade cuts from the bottom surface to the top of the wood as I push the stock through. I keep the sawdust guard fairly low to prevent sawdust blowing up into my face, and do have to pay close attention to not feed it too fast, but that's true for whichever direction I'm pushing it.
I appreciated the comment above that an RAS tends to focus your mind toward safety. Of course all these screaming, spinning pieces of sharp metal tend to do that, but maybe moving the RAS blade back and forth toward your face tends to heighten the effect!

CPG001 took the words right out of my mouth. Here in NW Washington state, we seldom are using air conditioning. The heat taken from the air would trigger my heating system to cycle back on!!
We're using solar heat collectors on our roof to heat our domestic hot water. Certainly not cheap, but much more direct, and is the only investment in our new house that actually pays me back something (vs just minimizing losses, as in good insulation, energy efficient windows, etc.)

Here in the northwest corner of Washington state, our Trex deck is now enjoying it's 22nd birthday, after it replaced our 9 year old, moderately maintained fir decking, which rotted away. Being 75 yards from saltwater, it has been a trooper in withstanding the salt air, the fog and rain, and our very little hot sun.
I pressure wash it once a year, to which it stands up admirably, and the softening and greying patina blends in pretty well with the natural rock, alder trunk, cedar, sitka spruce, and Doug fir tones which surround us. It has a good grip in the rain and feels soft and fine on bare feet in the summer.
I can't cite the embedded energy in the product, but we all know that the "problem" with plastics is that they don't really go away. That's why, to my mind, if they are properly designed and applied, they make sense to use in the highly exposed deck environment. Converting "throw away" plastic to something longer-lived (nothing is permanent) seems to me a good use of our precious petroleum resources.
We're building a new house this year, with cedar corner posts, big fir beams, some glue-lam beams (exposed), hickory flooring, oak and walnut spiral stairs, and, yes, plastic decking!! We will check out some of the new products mentioned above. Thanks for the thoughts, and let's not get too religious about all this.
Mark

Solar roof technology:
1. I'm waiting for "3D photovoltaic cells" to hit the market. They are made with "carbon nano-tube" technology, are many fold times more efficient due to the columns of carbon that trap incident light from about any angle.
Would you look to see if any of the vendors are getting close to marketing these?? (A twelve year old Asian-American student produced some in his home oven recently; got major awards).

2. I want to add root-top fluid tube panels to contribute heat to the in-floor radiant heat we are planning. Your latest "Energy - Smart Homes Special Edition" showed a glycol tube version (in both roof and radiant floor tubes) in Michael McDonaugh's "traditional" home in Asheville, NC, but it didn't mention any manufacturers or particular vendors.
I'd like more information on this particular version and also any comparisons to water based in-floor systems.

Thanks for this great additional service!! How do you communicate the results of your findings??

Mark Backlund