Thanks for the responses... This isn't a vegetable plot. It is an ornamental garden. The plants are well-established for the most part. Although (my personal opinion) the plants are being moved around a bit too often for this dry hot weather. I could make an onsite compost pile (or 20)nobody would try and stop me but I was looking for a quick fix. LOL People around here seem more interested in plants than soil. I like dirt so am sticking to that part of the process. I guess I have silty sand because this stuff is HARD. It is almost as hard as clay but when you do get the clods to bust they break up into fine pieces instead of chunks like clay does. The fine bits just reform into a hard layer once it is watered and left to dry. The area is mulched but the water just goes through the mulch and runs off the beds and into the paths. We do water but I do not think it is a very effective system. I've been digging holes and trying to break up the top soil and watering into the holes instead of watering the top of the mulch or soil. I guess I'll just make some "community garden" compost and keep picking out what I can from around the dump area to use to amend the soil. I can "liberate" the grass clippings and hide them until fall and start a regular compost pile and maybe some leaf mold. I can find a place that is a little out of sight near the garden and get some wire fence from the junk yard and see what happens. Thanks again.

Thanks for the kind words. Lalitha! The induction is three elements. It's 2/3 of the 36" unit you can see in the stores (or was last year...). From the planning guide "Three cooking zones: One induction cooking zone ø 15 cm (1400 W, with booster 1800 W) [small ring]. One induction cooking zone ø 21 cm (2200 W, with booster 3300 W) [medium ring]. One induction cooking zoneø 18 cm (1800 W, with booster 2500 W) [center ring of large element] addition increases cooking zone to ø 28 cm (3600 W, with super booster function 4400 W) [outer ring plus center ring = large element]" The Wolf gas is "One medium 12,000 Btu/hr sealed burner with 800 Btu/hr delivered at simmer. One small 9,200 Btu/hr sealed burner with 300 Btu/hr delivered at simmer." The small, front one is about 9" square, and the medium, rear one is about 10"x13" I find this configuration very adaptable. Sometimes I'm trying to make a one pot quickie, which is often on the large induction element. Or I'll do a pot and a pan, with one on the large element, and one on the front medium element. These are things like pasta with vegetables, or a saute and a sauce. A few weeks ago I was making burritos to freeze. I had already made the meat in the oven and shredded it. I had the rice simmering in a large shallow pot (Le Creuset "braiser"), on the large induction element, and my Le Creuset small, square grill plate on the small gas burner for toasting the tortillas. It actually does work on the induction, and would have meant less fiddling with the heat, but it just seems wrong. Standing between the two really drove home how hot the gas is. It was on low-medium and my left side was hot, and my right side, stirring the rice, wasn't! For Passover Seder, I had the matzah balls on the back burner, the chicken soup on the large induction burner, smaller things off and on on the smaller induction burners, and the teakettle on the small gas. I did the large pot of tzimmis (roots and fruits) early and was holding it in the warming drawer. I would have done the same thing even if I twice the number of burners. Heating up the chicken broth is nothing. I wanted anything I needed to pay attention to over by that point. Meats in the ovens, and casseroles in the Advantium on oven setting. I just bought some chicken to make meatballs out of, and some red peppers for the sauce. I'll char the peppers on the gas (I even have a little mesh style barbecue grill that sits on the grate), and cook the chicken balls in a braiser on the large induction element. I'll probably make the mother sauce on the medium induction element, though if I do a saute as well, I'll do that there, and the sauce on the small gas. Most people rarely use more than three burners at once. As I said, even when I could need five or six, I'd rather use the warming drawer and three or four. And I have an electric kettle which I could use if I needed to free a hob. There are a few things which I make, which theoretically have half a dozen different pots all hot at once and combined only at plating, but even those can be done in shifts given a warming drawer or hot plate. I wanted the 24" induction because I wanted the big, powerful element and didn't want to devote the money or space to two Gaggenau dominoes to accomplish the same thing. For less than a quarter of what the two pieces would have cost me, I got the same function in 6" less counter, and a couple inches less vertical depth. The drawer underneath and the hood are both 48" wide. As you can see, I gained a couple of precious counter inches in the corner, and several on the right, which is my secondary prep area (by the clean-up sink). And I got the cool magnet knob. :)

I am not the Ruud expert, but it appears to be a basic single stage system. Here is your Proposal 6: 2-stage, variable speed Carrier Furnace 59TN6080-14 (same as 5) 2-stage Carrier AC 24ANB736 Carrier evaporator coil CNPV3717 Infinity thermostat Comparing Carrier Proposal 6 vs. the Rudd system 2-stage 60KBTU vs. single stage 75KBTU (75K may be oversized) 2-stage 3 ton condenser vs. single stage 2.5 condenser 17 SEER (need to check) vs. 14.5 SEER Infinity thermostat vs. unknown thermostat The Carrier system is superior. You can get an equivalent Rudd system but it will cost more. I would spend the extra money on a variable speed furnace and a 2-stage condenser.

Checking in late to this party. We are in NJ, directly west of NYC in southern Morris County. Here, we experienced brutal, 80+ mph winds Monday night. It was terrifying. Strange, colored "glow" lightening. Huge trees snapping in the woods like gunshots. Power is out. Generator is on. Spotty Internet access. Cell phones and landlines completely down, still. We lost power Monday afternoon at 5pm. We're expected to be without power for up to 3 weeks. Thank goodness for the generator, though! We have coffee, heat, water, and lights. Now the problem seems to be procuring gasoline - exactly zero gas stations are open because they're literally out of gas. We will siphon from our cars as needed to keep the generator running. But we are being super conservative. We haven't ventured out far, because 95% of the roads in my township are currently barricaded from downed trees and power lines. 100% of my town is without power. Compared to the destruction we saw in a 2-mile radius of my house yesterday, we are extremely lucky. We only lost 6 big trees, and thankfully none hit the house or any outbuildings. Our fence is destroyed in many places, but that's nothing. Many of my neighbors did not fare so well. The devastation is unbelievable, and pictures do not convey the sense of loss. I cried when we drove around town. I cannot imagine what those down the shore are feeling right now. Below are a few photos I took of my immediate surroundings and my neighbors. Not as bad as down the shore, but still the worst storm and destruction I have ever personally experienced. We're trying to help in the clean-up efforts around town. It's going to be a long road ahead. Surreal. Here is a link that might be useful: Hurricane Sandy photos - my town