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I’m working on an article for the magazine about solar power, and I ran across this great Web site: findsolar.com. By using its solar calculators, you can find out whether installing photovoltaic (PV) panels makes any financial sense in your individual situation. You simply plug in your home address, the name of your electric utility and the amount of your monthly electric bill. Within seconds, you’ll learn: — Which local, state and federal rebates and tax credits are available to you — How big a PV system you need — How big your roof needs to be to handle that size system — The estimated cost of the system — Your monthly and 25-year savings — Your 25-year return on investment (ROI) — The number of years it will take to break even....

Famous for its appearances in movies, the Madagascar Hissing Cockroach (Gromphadorhina portentosa) is native to its namesake island off the coast of Africa. It’s not indigenous to the Americas, so you shouldn’t expect to find these in your home or business unless it’s an escaped pet. More on that later. What are Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches The Hissing Cockroach is best known for the obvious — the hissing. You can audibly distinguish these cockroaches from others by the way they aggressively fight and hiss....

Bring on summer with markdowns galore! The Walmart Memorial Day Sale 2021 is early this year! Check out the latest deals and offers for your home and backyard. It all adds up to a boatload of savings — some of our favorite items are up to 50 percent off. Want more deals? Check out our weekly Deals We Love column. Don’t Miss Out on the Walmart Memorial Day Sale 2021 Discover fantastic rollbacks at Walmart’s most unexpected sale of the year....

Family Handyman Every Maker’s Secret Weapon This Kreg pocket hole jig ($40 at home centers) makes joinery simple for anyone who has an electric drill. It creates strong joints fast with no glue or mess. Just clamp the jig to the parts you’re joining, drill a couple of holes, then screw the parts together to get tight, strong joints every time. It works great for joining wood of nearly any size, type or dimension....

Poplar is one of the workhorse materials of the modern woodshop. Readily available, relatively inexpensive and dimensionally stable, it’s used in everything from paint-grade cabinetry to high-end furniture. It works beautifully with hand tools, machines easily and finishes well. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know about poplar so you can use it confidently in your next woodworking project. What is Poplar Wood? Poplar wood is a hardwood that comes from the tulip poplar....

Last fall I tackled a little project that could have caused me big problems. The previous spring, I had a drain tile system installed in my basement. The system discharges outside through a sump pump discharge pipe, and I quickly tired of looking at that ugly black extension hose sticking out the side of my house. I decided to bury a pipe to carry the water out near a rock garden about 20 ft....

Some folks might find it meditative to sort laundry, while for others it’s a complete drag. But the question is: Do we really need to sort laundry? The short answer is yes. Sorting, including separating laundry by color, prolongs the life of clothing and other washables. And while skipping the sort doesn’t necessarily mean your clothes will be ruined, taking a few minutes to separate your wash loads just makes good sense....

Drywall revolutionized residential home building in the 1940s and 50s. Gypsum panels provided simple, affordable wall coverings that went up far faster than traditional lath and plaster. This reduced labor and material costs, which led to lower home prices. Millions of post-war home buyers loved the solid, durable surface drywall provided. But there’s one area where drywall does not excel: Fastener retention. Dry, crumbly gypsum doesn’t provide enough stable material for a fastener to latch on to....

by Nelson Lebo for Fix.com Windows provide us with so many benefits – natural daylight, a quaint view. But during the winter months they become holes in the sides of our homes, letting out all our coveted heat. The best fix for this is curtains. Basically winter insulation for windows, curtains create an air gap between the room and the glass. But unfortunately, the vast majority of curtains do not hold the warmth as well as they should....

Geber86/Getty Images According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (USBLS), carpentry is one of the most in-demand jobs in all the trades. The USBLS predicts that more than 50,000 new carpentry jobs will open up between 2018 and 2028. Why so much need? The housing bust/financial crisis of 2008 caused many construction tradespeople to retrain into other careers. And with construction work stagnant, young people entering the workforce generally looked for opportunities in other fields....

The linen closet is a difficult space to keep tidy, especially if yours is on the small side. These organizing tips will help you get rid of the piles of mismatched bedding and take control of your limited shelf space! Empty Your Closet and Purge For any organizing project, it’s best to start with a blank slate. Clear out everything (yes, everything!) from your linen closet and lay it all out on a table so you can sort through each item....

Kmatta/Getty Images Last week the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (National COSH) released what it calls the National Agenda for Worker Safety and Health. The 17-page report is critical of steps taken by the federal government to protect essential workers in the U.S. from COVID-19 over the last year, as well as the dangerous conditions essential workers still face. “Up until now, neither the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), our nation’s safety and health agency, nor any other federal body has enacted meaningful protections,” the report says....

What do you do if after decades of catering to cigarette smokers, your business needs to make a change to survive? Well, if you’re Zippo, you get into the campfire game. That’s exactly what the company did, producing neat campfire-centric multi-tools, fire starters, emergency kits, lanterns and more. One of the most interesting camping products I’ve seen in a long time is the Zippo AxeSaw, a lightweight, well-designed multi-tool for preparing firewood....

The first sinks were basins — drainless tubs that sat on shelves and gave users access to water without treking to a river or lake. Even today, most modern sinks are still essentially basins connected to a countertop, either from below (undermount) or from above (drop-in). Undermount sinks are relatively new, only becoming common in the last 50 or 60 years. Drop-in sinks, on the other hand, are an evolution of plumbing trends that date back centuries....

What is R-Value? As the weather changes and thermostats are set up or down, the R-value of your home’s shell plays a critical role in keeping you comfortable. If you walk through the aisles of a home center, you see rolls and boards of insulation labeled R-1 all the way up to R-38. But what is R-Value? It refers to the resistance (that’s what the R stands for) of heat-transfer from hot air to cold air....

via Getty Images The sun is out and it’s a great time for a road trip. Planning some time for sleeping under the stars can make your getaway even more fun. Camping with the family or a group of friends helps everyone unwind and relax with a dose of adventure. It’s great to listen to the wind blow through the trees, but that’s not the time to discover you set out without essential gear....

You undoubtedly know some of the best Black Friday sales of 2021 are already underway, and now there’s more good news to share. The Ace Hardware Black Friday sale starts soon, and it’s ripe with all sorts of deals for DIYers. Take our Black Friday shopping tip and make sure you shop early, because bestsellers and popular picks may sell out fast. When Is the Ace Hardware Black Friday Sale? This year’s Ace Hardware Black Friday sale starts November 17 and runs through the rest of the month....

Many homes have at least one room that is rarely used. And then there’s the bathroom, which everyone uses every day. With all of those hard surfaces, sharp objects and then water to make everything slippery, the bathroom needs plenty of light for safety. Preventing accidents is just one function of bathroom lighting. Joel Worthington, president of Mr. Electric, a Neighborly company that supplies bathroom lighting, says it also provides atmosphere, illumination for grooming and even auxiliary heat....

SolStock/Getty Images UPDATE (March 10, 2021)— The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) recently submitted a proposal for a new rule to determine whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee. The independent contractor rule finalized under the previous administration will likely be modified or replaced before it is scheduled to take effect on May 7. Details have yet to announced publicly, but the new rule is expected to be modeled after the so-called ABC test California uses to distinguish employees from full-time contractors....

Jon Osumi/Shutterstock It can be a little discomforting, to say the least, when you see a house centipede crawling its way through your house, looking to hide under the baseboard molding or making a run for the kitchen cabinets. Nobody really likes to have these multi-legged creepy crawlers as unwelcome guests in their house. They aren’t easy to catch either. The typical house centipedes have 15 pairs of legs and can travel 1....