Awe Mary he must have been a great dad. I diagnose the problems over the computer and tell him what to check for, lol. I can listen to an engine and tell you whats wrong with it and how much to fix it but can't do the work, lol. It took me an hour to change a battery for a customer one day when I was working by myself, lol. If he had listened to me in the beginning with the boat it wouldn't have gotten so bad. I researched the kind of motor we had and the symptoms and told him to check the compression and he never did. He replaced all kinds of other parts instead and it got worse, lol. He is an excellent car and truck mechanic but boats are different and now he is going to have to learn them top to bottom, lol.

Got it. I'm on board with 555, not just because it's the code but because it's hard to argue against it -- it makes good sense and I want my work safe. So now for the part about hooking up the generator: What'd I'd like to do is at the stub up near where the dock meets the shore, I'd like to put in the power transfer box. Someday, when I build a house I will replace it with power from the grid; today I would like to just put in a box to power from a quiet generator. -If I put in a 30A power transfer and run 10gauge to the breaker box (that I have yet to buy or install) is it appropriate to use only 3 of the wires (white black ground) and cap off one for eventual use with grid power? -The reason I want to do it that way is so that I can run the wire once and use it later when I get more power. Alternatively, I can put the gennie on the land and just run an extension cord but then there's a cord running down the dock. -What is your recommendation on power transfer? -What is your recommendation on the size of the breaker panel (I am planning on 100W of lighting, a stereo of say 200W, a ceiling fan ~150W, and my boat lift 1.5kw to start and not sure the operating load--will need to use my killawatt)? -My thoughts were to buy one that would house 4 breakers: 1 for electrical outlets, 1 for lighting and fan, 1 for boat lift, and 1 unused. I'm not looking forward to beating the grounding rod into the ground though. Thank you!

Lynartist, let me throw another lifestyle issue into the mix. We have two cats that will certainly get hair on the bottom of the curtains, but I can begrudgingly clean those regularly. The bigger fear is that one decides to climb and snags or tears the material. I can only be present with the water spray bottle/cat training tool for so many hours of the day. I do like your idea of treating the area as a whole rather than parsing out separate window ideas. I've been using this site and post to begin learning about options, vocabulary, concepts for these windows. Your advice, and that of others, is greatly appreciated. Now that I am somewhat armed with a starter set of ideas I'll reach out to a professional in the area, but am still interested in getting more ideas. I always content that it is good to be part of a team. Cheers.

Re: David Cary “Wouldn't a "crankcase heater" be thermostatically controlled so not likely to be continuous. It would seem to be an incredibly lazy design if that were not the case.” So far I have been unsuccessful in locating Carrier schematics that include crankcase heaters, although I’m not investing much time to do so. I know that our geothermal HP does have one and remember calling and questioning the president and chief design engineer (about 20-years ago) about not only its inclusion in the design but that in particular it being a waste of energy because it is not temperature controlled (always ‘ON’) and that in most geothermal designs it’s just not needed in that the compressor in a geothermal HP is located inside the conditioned space of the building envelope. He agreed and remarked that in all his years of being in business no one had ever challenged the legitimacy of the design, he was not complaining, just suggesting no one had drilled that deeply into the schematic. My background is in electronics long before ever getting involved professionally in geothermal was what I told him. In fairness, I would speculate that these off the self compressors used in this design all included crankcase heaters because the manufacturer could not predict where or in what application they might be used and separate production runs (with & without heaters) would not be cost effective. Our geothermal HP is an R-22 reciprocating compressor design. Subsequent models of the same series with r410a Scroll compressors, no longer indicate any crankcase heaters. Back to your question. I would imaging that temperature control of any crankcase heater would be a logical requirement, if needed at all, for Energy Star accreditation. That seems to me to be a no-brainer, as well as controls that require a current draw below 5-watts and perhaps below even 1-watt in ‘stand-by’ mode for Energy Star certification. However things are probably further complicated by systems having to power remote illuminated T-Stats and blower fans that might always be ‘ON’ even at a minimum flow rate to circulate the air, humidify the air in heating mode and filter the air year round for better IAQ. IMPO SR