Even if you have air conditioning—like 88 percent of U.S. households, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey—you may still struggle to stay cool on the hottest days. What’s more, increased electricity use can lead to brownouts and outages. Here’s how to prepare your home for a heat wave before…
If you want to improve the taste and the purity of your tap water without cluttering your countertop or attaching a bulky appendage to your faucet, an under-sink water filter may be the answer. In addition to being out of sight and generally improving the taste of your water, many under-sink water filters can remove…
I was not sure what to expect from Diadem’s new BluCore paddle, which is among a handful of new paddles that have replaced the standard honeycomb polymer core with closed-cell foam—they sent me a sample of the stuff, and it looks like you could make a gas station cooler out of it. That foam is…
The launch of Switch 2 brings with it a selection of retro GameCube games for subscribers to the Nintendo Switch Online service. As it did for the NES, SNES, N64, and even Sega Genesis/Mega Drive when games from those platforms joined the library, Nintendo has released a perfect recreation of the original controller, allowing you…
If you’re handy, wall-mounting a TV is not too hard, but not everyone has the skills or inclination to do it. And you don’t need to. Retailers, including Best Buy, Target, and Walmart, all offer installation services. Prices vary, depending on how complicated the installation will be. For example, Best Buy’s Geek Squad charges $250…
Today, there are better detangling tools, but which ones are the best? Our diverse team of five Consumer Reports employees and my teenage daughter, with a variety of hair types and textures, including kinky, curly, straight, and coiled natural hair, evaluated six popular detangling hair brushes. Plus: One evaluator tried them on her wigs and…
When, one year ago today, a buggy update to software sold by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike took down millions of computers around the world and sent them into a death spiral of repeated reboots, the global cost of all those crashed machines was equivalent to one of the worst cyberattacks in history. Some of the…
If you have elected for a robot vacuum with mapping capabilities, it usually gives you the option of a quick mapping run without cleaning. It might seem like a waste, but it does save time in the long run. Use the mapping run to take a quick walk around your house and look for dangling…
Button it up. If a window was cracked or knocked out in the storm, be sure to cover and seal it tightly to prevent further water intrusion and damage. A tarp and packing tape should do the job. Read up on your insurance policy. “Contact your agent or insurance company and advise them that your vehicle has…
I mention refrigerator icemakers potentially not working for a reason. When I walked into my new house a couple of weeks after officially purchasing it, I noticed a muted sloshing. The kitchen floor appeared even more reflective than the glossy white tiles should have been. My sister, who drove me from New York to my…