Imagine: you’re in the middle of a nice, hot morning shower. Then, without any warning at all, your shower is neither hot nor nice. Your water is freezing. After leaping out of the shower, you’re probably only thinking one thing (well, one blog-appropriate thing): why did that just happen?! So:
Answering Your Questions About Tamper-resistant Outlets
Kids Who Scamper In Pampers Shouldn't Tamper Kids love to explore, and that’s a good thing--it’s basically their job to learn, after all. Unfortunately, all that curiosity occasionally gets kids in trouble. They do something dangerous like playing with electrical outlets and they get hurt. Around
Why You Should Switch to Three-prong Outlets
Two Prongs Don't Make A Right It's time to replace your two-prong outlets with three-prong outlets. Two-prong outlets are unsafe and outdated. So outdated, in fact, that since 1962 building code has stated that all new houses must install three-prong outlets. Three-prong outlets protect your home
How Do Thermostats Work?
Put Another Log On The Fire That’s more than a line from a clever song with lyrics by Shel Silverstein. Come on baby you can fill my pipe and then go fetch my slippers And boil me up another pot of tea Then put another log on the fire babe And come and tell me why you're leaving me Aren't
How To Repair or Replace Your Thermostat
Fix the Thermostat, STAT! If you've ever watched one of those doctor shows, you’ve probably heard the phrase "Dr. So-And-So needed in ER--STAT!" STAT means the good doctor is needed immediately. And if your thermostat doesn't work, you want it fixed immediately. You learned a little about
All About Home Electricity: Part Two
Your Electrical System Is Complex Your electrical system doesn't have a complex, but with all those wires and components, it is complex. That doesn’t mean you can’t hope to get to know or even understand it, however. We’re going to do our best to break things down as simply as possible. In part
All About Home Electricity: Part One
Did Ben Franklin "discover" electricity? No. Want to elaborate on that a little? Okay, fine. Scientists were working with electrical forces for over a thousand years before Benjamin Franklin supposedly flew his famous kite. What Franklin’s experiment did demonstrate was the connection between
Installing Your Hot Tub
In part one, we answered the question "Does a hot tub increase the value of my home?" and landed on the less-than-definitive with the not-so-definitive answer of "it depends." We shared some hot tub health benefits (turns out they’re relaxing) and finally estimated roughly how much a hot tub will
Things to Consider Before Installing a Hot Tub
Hot Tub, Gonna Make Ya Sweat-a! That might be what Eddie Murphy sang when he impersonated James Brown on Saturday Night Live, but don’t worry: the hot tub itself might make you sweat, but putting it in won’t. Seriously? It's easy to put in a hot tub? "Easy" is a relative term, so let's just say
My smoke alarm won’t stop beeping. Help!
Beeping smoke alarms are pretty common, and there's usually an easy fix for them. Before you shut up beeping smoke alarm for good, however, you should know why it’s beeping in the first place. It’s good to know stuff, and it turns out that beeping is happening for a reason. That’s why we’d like to
Installing Landscape Lighting You’ll Love, Part 2
Landscape Lights Don't Install Themselves Last time, we gave you an overview of types of landscape lighting. We promised to show you how to install them in part 2. Well, this is part 2, and we’re keeping our promise. Is it hard to install landscape lighting kits? The difficulty of any project is
Installing Landscape Lighting You’ll Love, Part 1
Floodlights? Two words. Ug. Ly. Floodlights are for theater plays, lighthouses, and prison yards, but they sure don't flatter your home. What you really want is landscape lighting, because landscape lighting: is low voltage so it's safe to use. is easy to install. accents the plants