Household Safety
Household safety should be given as much attention as any home improvement or decorating scheme. Learn about general household safety and home security.
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With the Internet as our guide, it seems as though no job is too large for our capable hands. But there are five jobs you should step away from and call a professional.
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a colorless, tasteless, odorless gas - and it can kill you. A carbon monoxide detector can help protect your family, but how does it know when CO is in the air?
By Angela Black
They're supposed to make your home smell like a spring day. But there's nothing fresh about low-grade pollutants. Do air fresheners lighten the scent in the air, or do their cancer-causing chemicals bog down people?
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Formaldehyde, PCB, asbestos: You don't want these words associated with your living space. So open the windows and get a breath of fresh air before reading this article.
You don't have to buy an alarm system to prevent burglaries. If your home looks lived-in and if your neighbors seem nosy, you're preventing crime.
There's a reason a natural gas leak has a rotten egg odor. That stink is meant to signal danger. Any spark - a match or even a light switch - could cause a serious explosion.
Insulation might look like cotton candy, but it's a little more practical. It's great for keeping your house warm, but some say it's just as bad as asbestos for your health.
By John Fuller
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Asbestos can be hazardous to your health, but removing it from your home can expose you and your family to the material. What's the safest way to deal with asbestos?
By Josh Clark
Locking your doors with deadbolts should be your first line of defense against home invasion. But what if that isn't enough? How can you keep your home safe?
By Josh Clark
Overloaded outlets and poorly made power strips can cause an electrical overload that can ruin your holiday plans. How many plugs does it take to start a fire?
By Josh Clark
There are a number of potential dangers in every home. Learn which dangers lurk in your home, and the simple precautions you can take to make your home a safer place.
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While it's difficult to protect your home from professional thieves, most home burglaries are done by amateurs. These thieves are more easily thwarted if you employ some of the following security precautions.
Some home security systems are complex and should be installed by a professional. However, there are good home security systems sold in kit forms that you can install yourself. Learn instructions for this project.
By Fix-It Club
New doors need a lockset. Some doors come predrilled for standard-size locksets, others will require drilling. Mortises also need to be cut for the lockset and strike plate. Learn the details to install a lockset.
This set of articles includes explanations of lockpicking and safecracking, as well as the mechanical workings of many of the most common types of locks.
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While there's a good chance that your fire extinguisher will sit on the wall for years, collecting dust, it could end up saving your property and even your life. Learn the correct way to use an extinguisher and see what sort of fire suppressant works best on different types of fires.
By Tom Harris
The super of our apartment building is always going into everyone's apartment when something needs to be fixed. There must be a hundred apartments, but he only carries one key around with him. How does he get into all those apartments?
Security systems can range from do-it-yourself kits for $10 to sophisticated whole-house networks installed by professionals. But most alarm systems are actually built around the same basic design concepts.
By Tom Harris
I have several smoke detectors in my house, and recently the battery went dead on one of them. It started chirping, so I took the battery out, only to have the others complain about it. My question is, how do all of the smoke detectors talk to one an
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How can motion-sensing lights detect your presence, and what prevents them from seeing you when you're standing still? It all comes down to the movement of light.
As the saying goes, "Where there's smoke, there's fire." Smoke detectors are amazing: They're pretty inexpensive, but they save thousands of lives each year. Learn all about nuclear and light-sensing smoke detectors.
Most of us are entirely dependent on electricity, so a power outage can become seriously annoying. Learn about the generators and inverters that can put an end to home power failures.
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In places where uranium is common in the soil, radon is a popular topic of discussion. Even though radon is "completely natural," it can be a real health hazard. Learn how radon forms and why it is so dangerous.
People use safes to keep their valuables, well, safe. But in movies, thieves can open one using a little concentration and a good ear. Could you crack a safe that easily?