Well, in my 30 odd years of growing roses, I have used just about every watering method known to man. Believe it or not, soaker hoses do deliver a lot of water, depending on the type you may be using. The term soaker hose is sort of generic, I mean it covers everything from the green hose with the holes in the top turned upside down to leaky pipe. Some nursery supply houses even sell a canvass one that really puts out the water. It is very hard to tell exactly how much you are putting out, but when I used them, I would normally turn the water on for an hour, and see how the roses looked after a couple of days of that. If they looked OK, I would use the one hour interval, if they were too wet, I would cut back to 30 minutes or go up 30 minutes to another hour, if they were too dry. After a time, I put one of those battery operated electronic water timers on the system, so that I wouldn't have to control it myself. The timer would come on when I wanted and be on for the requisite amount of time and then cut off, every day or every other or whatever. By using the water timer, I wouldn't have to be there to control anything, and the roses would still get watered. What you choose to do is really up to you. I don't use soaker hoses anymore, because I have found something I like better, and am sure that my time interval is just right. We are under water restrictions here, so I have to be more careful now.

After cooking on and adjusting my CC for the past four months or so I think I have come to the conclusion, as others have, that you will never get a CC with its current burner configuration to get low enough for most of us regardless of how you adjust the "Simmer" screw or igniters. I am not going to get hung up on the "Book" definition of "Simmer". Why would I make such a bold statement? The CC burner has 92 ports or holes � 36 in the outer ring (39%), 36 in the middle ring (39%) and 20 (22%) in the inner ring. Let�s ASSUME for the sake of the discussion that all of the ports are the same and the output is equally divided between the 92 ports at all settings. Now look at the picture below: As posted at the start of this thread this is how one of my burners is adjusted � no flame in the outer ring and no "Clicking". If you follow my calculations above this means this burner is operating at 61% of the burners total capacity and much lower than most of the burners shown on this thread. This week end I cooked two pot roasts at the same time on the CC. One was in a 6 � qt Lodge enameled, cast iron pot and the other in a 13" aluminum oval roaster. Both had a 3 to 4 pound roast, broth, veggies, etc. On "Simmer" this burner produced a temperature of 205F with more bubbles that I would call a low simmer and the other burner was 207F with bubbles. I believe the 92 or 56 ports (the inner and middle rings) will never be able to be adjusted to produce a low enough Btu output to satisfy the average cook. This is why myself and several others believe that CC will ultimately have to redesign the burner to something like a single 20 port ring (like the inner ring on the current burner) with the appropriate office and air shutter to achieve a true "Low Simmer". I would to see Mr. Kalsi and Capital produce a burner that had a range of something like 100 Btu to 23,000 Btu, but I don�t think it can be done and I know the current burner is no that adjustable. Side Note: Has any manufacturer ever published the Btu output of its burners at its lowest setting? If they have I surly have not been able to find it. All they publish is the MAXIMUM output and I have no idea what the lowest setting is when expressed as a percentage of the maximum.

Today, for the first time, I imagined what it would be like to run away from home (we are 37, married 15 years, have 17 year old sone and his girlfired age 18 living with us). I even started thinking about how I could do it logistically would I need to take time off work, or could I still go to work each day? Hubby would be alright theres enough reserves in the bank to get him and kids by. I could move to our coutrny proeprty (no power or house, just an old caravan in a paddock) and I could take 3 months unpaid leave from work. All I would need is a few tins of baked beans, a few boxes of matches and candles, some access to music, and my paints. A few good books would be good too. Id have all the space and solitude I needed and enough air to breath and think and relax. No rules, no children, no housework. Dare I imagine what that would be like? no one to offer support to, no one to care about, no one to worry over, no one to smile at, be polite to, struggle to converse with. Wow. I could make my own rules because Id be the only one to follow them. I could eat out of tins and spend as much or as little as I wanted on the things around me. It would cost me nothing to live! This fantasy has blossomed in my mind because of a dream I had this morning before waking. It was a bit mixed up, but there seemed to be people who were talking in a spaceship but had no control over what they were saying or doing. I was hurled out of the spacecraft and was freefalling towards earth. Frightened and panicked, I noticed I had in my hand a small square vinyl package with instructions of how to turn the package into a parachute. But I was too stressed out to read it properly and I hit the ground before I had any chance to save myself. Waking, heart thumping, my brain told me simply, "you should run away from home". Wow, i think I'm suffocating. has anyone dared do the "cave" thing? I would love to hear from anyone who has left her old world behind and learned to live simple, solitutude life. Did it fix her problems? Was she able to return home after a period of time?

If you haven't heard from him by close of business today, then something's definately wrong. That's not just poor communication skills. When a customer calls you and you can't call them back within 24 hours, even to say, "I'm swamped right now, I'll get with you after hours." then an elephant of a different sort is in the room. Either he sees you as too demanding and he's not making enough money from the job to deal with you as as that type of customer, or he has some financ:al issues elsewhere that are consuming his time and effort. Or, (being generous here) he or an immediate family member is in the hospital. Either way, he should just come right out and tell you what the issue is rather than ducking your communication. However, some contractors are worse at conflict than they are at communications. Sort of, "If I ignore it, the conflict won't exist." If you have one of those, then there is precious little that you can do except part ways. Conflicts and problems always arise in a project. That's the #1 reason you hire a contractor. YOu want him to use his knowledge base to deal with those issues. It's just babysitting on a larger scale and with more expensive toys. If a contractor can't make the boys and girls share and get along and follow mommy's rules, then he shouldn't be a contractor. And if you have that guy, then it's time to legally separate yourself from him and move on.