Clear, illustrated answers about the appliances, heating and cooling, water, power and air in your home. Find out what a noise, light or leak means, what to check first and when to call a professional.
Common searches: smoke alarm chirping water heater popping windows sweating
Select a pin to open the most-asked question about that part of the house.
Air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps, thermostats and space heaters.
Water heaters, toilets, pipes, sump pumps, sinks and water quality.
Refrigerators, freezers, dishwashers, ovens, stoves and microwaves.
Washing machines, dryers, detergents, cycles and care.
Running costs, outlets, breakers, lighting and smoke and CO alarms.
Humidity, condensation, dehumidifiers, humidifiers and indoor air.
What any appliance costs to run per hour, month and year.
The BTU rating a room needs, using the ENERGY STAR method.
Will your windows sweat tonight? Find the humidity limit for your glass.
Is a repair worth it? Compare cost, age and expected lifespan.
What your smoke or carbon monoxide alarm is telling you, and what to do now.
Ice on an air conditioner in July looks backwards, but it follows simple physics. Here is how to thaw the system without damaging it, and how to tell which of seven causes you are dealing with.
Microwaves are not quiet machines. The magnetron hums, the fan whirs, relays click and food pops. A few sounds are worth acting on, and most of them come from the turntable, not the electronics.
A refrigerator does not make cold; it moves heat out of the box and releases it through coils near the floor. Anything that slows that flow, inside or outside, shows up as a warm fridge.
A CO alarm uses a handful of sounds, and only one of them is an emergency. Knowing which is which lets you act fast on the real thing and fix the rest without guessing.
A heat pump’s running cost comes down to how much heat you ask for and how efficiently it delivers it. The efficiency is printed on the unit as HSPF2 and SEER2, and with your electricity rate that is enough to do the math.
The first cold week wakes up every radiator in the house, and some of them complain. The noise tells you what is wrong, once you know whether your system runs on steam or hot water.
A thermostat that moves its own setpoint is almost never broken. It is following an instruction, and the work is finding out who gave it.
Numbers come from manufacturers’ manuals and agencies such as the Department of Energy, ENERGY STAR and the EPA. Every guide lists its sources.
We separate what you can check yourself from work that belongs to a licensed professional, and we say why.
Each guide shows when it was last reviewed. Corrections are welcome and we act on them quickly.