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The brakes are your car’s most important safety feature. Made up of several different parts and components, they are designed to be noisy when they’re going bad, which is a good thing. It’s definitely better to find out your brakes are going bad from hearing a squeak than by not being able to stop! Fortunately, most brake noises are considered normal and do not indicate a problem. Constant or strange brake noise can be a sign that your brake hardware simply needs to be lubricated....

Smart plugs can automate just about anything in your house in minutes. Plug one into the wall, plug a lamp or a common electric device into the smart plug, and voila: Instant “smart.” Now you can turn it on and off with your phone, put it on a schedule or even monitor its energy usage. Smart plugs are truly becoming a must-have in any home. There are almost endless uses for smart plugs, but we’ve rounded up the most useful ideas to get you started....

What is Pet Palaces? You love your pets, and you love DIY — or, at least, reading about it. Our new show Pet Palaces combines both these things. We’re bringing you all kinds of incredible DIY habitats for pets of every species! Host Luke Barr regularly tackles unique challenges as he strives to design spaces that fit the pets, as well as the needs of their owners. That’s right: These “palaces” aren’t limited to cat towers and dog houses....

Family Handyman What is Green Treated? “Green treated” (aka pressure-treated) refers to wood that’s had preservatives forced into it, under pressure, to help protect it against decay and insect attacks. Today, the most commonly used preservative is ACQ—Alkaline Copper Quaternary. The copper in the solution is the chemical that imparts the green color; as the wood dries and reacts to sunlight, the color fades to gray. Brown or “cedar tone” treated lumber may be either ACQ lumber treated with a brown stain or lumber treated using CA (Copper Azole)....

Stokkete/Shutterstock The truth about home ownership is that you’re constantly learning your home’s secrets. Maybe you’re puzzling over the floor plan, researching the source of a structural issue, or investigating the resale value when the question pops into your head: who built this house? Start your long and treacherous or short and simple quest with these tactics for how to find out who built your house. If you choose to build your own home some day, here are some tips to help you find the right contractor....

Gallinago_media/Shutterstock Any car owner will worry about an electrical problem because of the hefty price tag an electric repair carries. We’ve shown you how to fix an electrical short in your car or truck and even how to clean electrical ground cables as well as how to splice car electrical wires. You’ve also known that from time to time rodents will gnaw on electrical wires in cars but it’s becoming a bigger problem....